Kristian White was sentenced to 450 hours of community service and placed under the supervision of a corrections officer for two years for manslaughter.
“Mr. White made by what any measure was a terrible mistake,” Justice Ian Harrison said in the New South Wales state Supreme Court.
Prosecutors had called for a prison term in the killing of Clare Nowland, a great-grandmother who suffered dementia, but the judge said such a punishment was disproportionate.
“It is … at the lower end of seriousness of crimes amounting to wrongful death,” Harrison said.
Because that’s not what he did.
The woman was holding a steak knife and refused to drop it, he shot her with the taser which caused her to fall - as tasers are designed to - but she hit her head and died a week later in the hospital. That’s an injury that is always a risk when using tasers against anyone.
Should they be used against 95 year olds with walkers even if they do refuse to drop the knife and continue menacingly inching towards you, that’s an entirely different issue.
i dont think it justifies it. a trained cop can easily wrestle a knife from a 95-yr old.
Anyone with a heavy blanket could do it, though the fall and head injury risk might be kinda similar.
They use big mattress things in Japan I think.
Easy for you to say.
pulling the trigger on a taser and killing your granny is also pretty easy apparently