Brickbat: Armed, Elderly, and Dangerous

Two police officers in East Sussex, England, are accused of using excessive force against 93-year-old Donald Burgess, a wheelchair-bound amputee with dementia, after he threatened care home staff with a small knife. Within 83 seconds of entering his room, Officers Stephen Smith and Rachel Comotto allegedly pepper-sprayed Burgess in the face, struck him with a baton, and tased him. Both have been charged with assault. Prosecutors argue the force was "unjustified and unlawful," while the officers claim their actions aligned with their training to disarm him quickly.

Comments

[AT]

Absolutely the crazy demented old man should have just been allowed to stab people.

Derp.

[docduracoat]

Why not just retreat a few steps?
He is harmless to others as long as you are out of arms reach.
Then you can formulate a plan.
Maybe one that includes pepper spraying him.
Maybe one that uses patience until he gets tired or hungry and puts down the knife.

[mad.casual]

Maybe one that uses patience until he gets tired or hungry and puts down the knife.

Are you volunteering to cover the time?

Once again, I pointed out last time that the core issue is nursing home workers (in a foreign country) failing to do their jobs at several levels and got near universally rebuffed for defending the cops. Reason, the forums, don't want to solve problems or fix policing. They need a police state to exist to justify their post-modern, nihilist, Marxist revolutionary stupidity.

[AT]

Do you not know how knives work?

See, they're sharp and stabby. And until a suspect is disarmed, they are hostile and potentially deadly. We don't let active threats "wear themselves out." We eliminate the threat. Exactly what is your issue with that?

You may as well have said, "It was only a .22. It's would sting more than it would kill."

[Stupid Government Tricks]

In a wheelchair. Amputee. 93 years old.

Step back five feet. Whassamatta, afraid of losing face, afraid of being seen as a coward?

[TrickyVic (old school)]

Stepping back doesn't solve the problem though. The reason you were called to the scene is still in progress. It's your job to put a stop to it. What a pickle of a situation for the cops.

At 93, I wonder if a case manager saying put the knife down or no pudding would have worked.

Was it a regular manual driven wheelchair? He can only go in a circle unless he drops the knife.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

Even if the wheelchair were powered, it's easy enough to block him in.

If a cop isn't willing to take the minimal risk involved in disarming a 93 year old in a wheelchair, he's a coward. Damn, throw a blanket over him. Use your baton to whack his knife arm. This is not rocket science.

Here's the background from TFA:

Staff called police after Burgess, who had one leg, was seen poking a care worker in the stomach with a cutlery knife after flicking food at her. Managers wheeled him back to his room and tried for half an hour to calm him before calling 999.

"Poking her"? IOW, not stabbing? And the cops may have whacked his knife arm, it only says the same as here, not where he struck the guy, but if so, he's not very good at whacking an arm with a knife. Pepper spray? Taser? Ridiculous.

[mad.casual]

"Poking her"? IOW, not stabbing?

He wasn't Mangione-level attractive enough for her to consider it to be naughty.

[TrickyVic (old school)]

""Pepper spray? Taser? Ridiculous.""

Absolutely.

[AT]

I never get tired of Monday Morning Quarterbacking.

Damn, throw a blanket over him. Use your baton to whack his knife arm. This is not rocket science.

Language.

"Police blindly attack blanketed 93yr old man in a wheelchair with batons." Because that sensational headline garbage would go over so much better.

[Get To Da Chippah]

"HE'S SLOWLY ROLLING RIGHT FOR US!!"

[TrickyVic (old school)]

Said no one.

[AT]

The only reason I posted it is because your mom said it to me and asked me to.

[Rossami]

Binary thinking. Moron. You're as much part of the problem as the incompetent crooks in uniform.

[AT]

Yours is the whole "let's humor the hostage taker, bank robber, pinned villain indefinitely" approach that is taken by people who watch too much television.

[mad.casual]

LOL:

He was taken to hospital after the incident and later contracted Covid. He died 22 days later.

If the assault fire extinguisher bear spray doesn't get you, "with COVID" will.

Staff called police after Burgess, who had one leg, was seen poking a care worker in the stomach with a cutlery knife after flicking food at her.

If we put more male cops on the nursing staff and more female nurses on the police force in the name of equity, this problem will solve itself!

[AT]

Make sure you get a bunch of blacks with an axe to grind in there. That has never bit anyone in the rear ever.

[diver64]

Staff "there is a guy with a knife"
Officers "club him like a baby seal then tase him"
Staff "he is 93, in a wheelchair, has no legs and has dementia"
Officers "So? What's your point?"

[Vernon Depner]

Yep. Follow the procedure in the manual. Mindlessly, stupidly, atrociously. All that matters is that the officers go home safe.

[Vernon Depner]

I don't doubt that the assault "aligned with their training". Often, in response to excessive force incidents, people will chime in with, "the police need MORE TRAINING." Frequently, the training is the source of the problem, focused as it is on officer safety, rather than on the safety and rights of citizens.

At least in this case the cops are being charged. That wouldn't happen in the USA.

[mad.casual]

As long as the (state run in the UK?) nursing home staff who allowed him to get a knife in the first place and then didn't defuse the situation themselves go home safe at night, problem solved as far as your brain works, eh?

Seems like, in a really exceptionally cowardly and dishonest manner like all the other post-modern nihilists and faux-libertarian libertines, you're just blaming, in the nth degree, not the people/state employees who were actually the cause of the problem or primarily responsible for dealing with the man and failed at their jobs, but the people who couldn't walk away.

[TrickyVic (old school)]

Cops get charged all the time here. I think you mean found guilty.
Cops, when charged are rarely found guilty.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

I followed some police crime blog for a few days once, and it surprised me how many cops do get charged and fired, but mostly for ordinary stuff like drunk on the job or being constantly late for their shift.

[Vernon Depner]

“I can think of no state of human misery that could not be made instantly worse by the arrival on the scene of a policeman.” - Brendan Behan.

[mad.casual]

Yeah, not sure an IRA member who drank himself to death at the age of 41 before meeting any of his children had the perspective better/worse most people would idolize.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Prosecutors argue the force was "unjustified and unlawful," while the officers claim their actions aligned with their training to disarm him quickly.

Guaranteed both are true.

[bye]

Hmmm, you picked an anomalous and rare example to show that you didn't need to pick an anomalous and rare example because this type of thing is so common 🙂

[ Only criticizing the writing ]

[Longtobefree]

But it is ENGLAND!
And he had a KNIFE!!!
Clearly they need more knife controls.

[Vernon Depner]

And he's 93! Why is that permitted? No one needs to live that long.

[Jerry B.]

Common-sense knife controls.

[TrickyVic (old school)]

Maybe he was an old Genisis fan?

[Vernon Depner]

Or maybe he was actually IN Genesis.

[sarcasmic]

If American cops did that they'd get a medal.

[Don't look at me! (Not signed with autopen)]

Really? Do you have examples?