Christian White, a 33-year-old senior police officer in Australia, has been charged with manslaughter.
The incident started when a nursing home worker in Kuma, NSW, called the police** in May this year, and after receiving **, White and another police officer, accompanied by an ambulance staff, found Nolan, a 95-year-old woman with dementia, in a room with a knife in her hand. When the staff at the nursing home tried to coax Nolan into handing over the knife in her hand, she threw a knife at them.
Another officer tried to grab the knife, but Nolan was said to have used her walker to walk towards them. White then activated his taser and told the victim: "Claire, stop now, look at this, it's a taser, now put it down, put it down, this is your first warning." According to court documents, Nolan then raised his hand holding the knife to chest height, and White hit Nolan in the chest area with Taser**, causing her to fall and hit her head. Nolan died in the hospital a week later.
White was subsequently suspended but paid. In a statement published online on Wednesday: On advice from the Attorney General's Office, the State Case Panel today brought additional charges of manslaughter against a 33-year-old senior constable member belonging to the Monaro Police District. The rationale is that tasers can be used against the elderly or disabled only in "exceptional circumstances".
It is worth noting that in the same state of New South Wales, a 47-year-old woman died after being hit with a taser in New South Wales. The woman threatened a member of the public with an axe and an oncoming police officer with an axe after noon local time on Thursday, and finally locked herself in her apartment, according to the state of New South Wales**. After about nine hours, the police entered the apartment and the tactical police unit shot the woman in the shoulder with a bean bag bullet. The police then shot and took control of the woman with a taser. The woman** was taken into the ambulance. Unfortunately, she later passed away in the hospital.
This is the second death this year involving a NSW police taser gun.