95-Year-Old Man Dies After Cops Shoot Him With Beanbag Rounds

This didn't occur to them as a likelihood?

According to the statement, arriving officers were confronted by the man identified as John Warna who was threatening paramedics and staff with a metal cane and a two-foot long metal shoehorn. Police say he would not drop the items and instead produced a foot-long butcher knife.

Again police say he refused to comply with verbal commands to drop it and they used a Taser which was ineffective. Officers then used non-lethal beanbag rounds and the man dropped the weapon and was taken into custody.

Police say he was alert and talking before being taken to a local hospital. He was then transferred to Christ Hospital where he was pronounced dead at 2:30 a.m.

Comments

[Joao]

Don't mess with the cops.

[Dan]

People are talking about how they should have taken him into custody differently, but that's missing the underlying issue.

They had no cause to take the man into custody in the first place. You cannot involuntarily force someone to get medical treatment unless you have a court order, which did not exist in this case. The police should have shown up, assesed the situation, and informed the nursing home that there was nothing they could do because neither they nor the nursing home have the authority to force the person to receive medical treatment. They should have left and there never should have been any kind of confrontation at all, let alone one that resulted in killing the man.