Police officer who tasered 95-year-old in care home suspended

Great-grandmother Clare Nowland is on end of life care in hospital after sustaining critical injuries in the incident

Clare Nowland, 95, was tasered by Australian police (Screengrab/ ABC News (Australia))

The officer who tasered a 95-year-old woman in a care home in Australia has been suspended from duty.

Clare Nowland sustained critical injuries when police were called out to the care home to reports she was walking around with a knife at 4am last Wednesday.

Ms Nowland is now receiving “end of life care” in hospital after it is believed she sustained a fractured skull and severe brain bleed after she fell during the incident.

The incident led to public outcry, with critics calling the police response disproportionate.

In a statement they shared on Tuesday, New South Wales Police confirmed the constable, 33, who tasered Ms Nowland has been stood down, with pay.

Australian authorities have launched a high-profile investigation the great-grandmother, who has dementia, was tasered.

Family friend Andrew Thaler told the BBC that the family are “shocked” and the community is “outraged”.

“The family are shocked, they’re confused... and the community is outraged. How can this happen? How do you explain this level of force? It’s absurd.”

Sharing a statement on Monday, the family said they were immensley grateful for all the support, but also asked for privacy at this time.

The statement described Ms Nowland as a “well respected, much loved and a giving member of her local community” adding that she is a “loving and gentle-natured matriarch of the Nowland family”.

Ms Nowland was tasered after she was found holding a steak knife at the aged care home in Cooma, about 300km (186 miles) southwest of Sydney. She is currently in a critical condition in hospital, fading in and out of consciousness.

When they first arrived at the retirement home, two officers spoke with Ms Nowland for several minutes but when she failed to drop the knife and approached them, one fired a taser, knocking her to the ground, according to the police.

“At the time she was tasered, she was approaching police but it is fair to say at a slow pace,” New South Wales Police assistant commissioner Peter Cotter said on Friday.

“She had a walking frame, but she had a knife.”

The officer, who fired the taser, was taken off duty pending a “level 1 critical incident investigation”, a category police reserve for exceptional cases where injuries lead to death or imminent death. The homicide squad is involved.

“If a threshold is met where it changes from being a departmental issue to being a criminal issue, we are certainly mature and transparent enough as an organisation to do what has to be done,” he said.

The incident was recorded on body cameras but it was not in public interest to release the footage because of the ongoing investigation, Mr Cotter added.

Ms Nowland, a mother of eight, celebrated her 80th birthday in 2008 by skydiving in Canberra.

She reportedly lived at the nursing home for more than five years. Her relatives were at her bedside in hospital and had declined to comment, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.