Elderly woman slammed hard by police at Walmart

I watched the video, but did not have the volume up.
It is unfortunate the old lady hit the ground, she might have had dementia or some mental condition to cause her actions.
A definite thumbs up to the LEO's for acting professional and like human beings.
They could have easily tasered her or been very rough in taking her down.
The officer did a excellent job in handling her with the least amount of reasonable force.
Good job!

reply to post by jd140

Why extra training?

They are adults who know right from wrong. Its pretty much common knowledge that waving a knife around and threatening people with it is wrong.

What kind of training do you propose for those with dementia? You can't reason with them.

If you are demented or senile you may not know right from wrong. I am not condemning what the officers did. They did what they were trained to do and in no way went overboard.

I am suggesting that there may be times, though not often, that consideration for the age and possible mentality of the person may need to be taken into consideration and that there may be techniques that could be employed other than a physical take down first.

But then this is just my thought. In fact, I know nothing about a police officers training or the possibilities of alternate training in unusual circumstances.

edit to add JD140, I think you are strething to find fault with my original post.

[edit on 8-8-2009 by liveandlearn]

reply to post by KSPigpen


I'm a troll huh.

Well I have been called a liberal, coservative, racist and everything in between so I guess I can add troll also.

You don't want to debate my post then dont reply junior. If you want to reply and be a smartass then I will reply in kind.

reply to post by liveandlearn


No, I'm not trying to find fault with your post at all.

I would just like you to elaborate on the extra training you mentioned.

reply to post by jd140


Below was my thought on the extra training.

I am suggesting that there may be times, though not often, that consideration for the age and possible mentality of the person may need to be taken into consideration and that there may be techniques that could be employed other than a physical take down first.

But then this is just my thought. In fact, I know nothing about a police officers training or the possibilities of alternate training in unusual circumstances.

Seriously, what's wrong with you people in the States? If the women was a threat weilding a weapon, who gives a rats ass what age she was? Cops don't get paid to "wait things out", they get paid to diffuse situations.

reply to post by liveandlearn


I really am not trying to pick on your posts or argue with you.

You think they need extra training.

Ok, what I'm trying to ask is.

What type of training do you propose for situations that you mentioned?

reply to post by jd140

that there may be techniques that could be employed other than a physical take down first.

But then this is just my thought. In fact, I know nothing about a police officers training or the possibilities of alternate training in unusual circumstances.Text

The above is just my thought. If I knew I would have said so. I said there "may be techniques" and "I know nothing about police officers training or the possibilities of alternate training".

I do know there is so much psychology out there that it is entirely conceivable that there are other techniques available.

People react the way they are trained and in this circumstance I think they did what they were trained to do and I would have no complaint.

reply to post by liveandlearn


She had a knife, she is an elderly person. She did not look like she was threatening anyone to me, I mean people were walking right past her with shopping carts. I think the Cops could have done things a little differently. They weren't there two minutes before this older woman was on the ground bleeding. I say a little tact was in order. What if that woman was your mother?

reply to post by Oatmeal

I say a little tact was in order. What if that woman was your mother?

Exactly, that is the point I was trying to make. The problem is I doubt they have been trained to deal with this in a more 'tactful' way. so, considering that fact, they acted as appropriately as they knew how.

reply to post by liveandlearn


I agree completely. The woman was obviously impaired, and should have been talked down to get the knife. No body was in immediate danger.
Police officers do have training in these matters, it was just not used here. Common sense didn't even prevail. However, there was surely an event which precipatated someone calling the police, and we don't really know what that was. It would have been handled better if someone had called a relative to come assist her rather than involving the police in the first place. Who knows? She could just be a mean old woman. We don't know. But even in that event, I don't think she should have been injured during the arrest, and clearly she was.

[edit on 8/8/0909 by ladyinwaiting]

I wonder if everyone here actually watched the video before jumping on to comment...

Several people said "he" when referring to the cop taking the woman down; in the video I watched it was a "she" taking the woman down.

Please don't comment on the video if you didn't actually watch it.

reply to post by ladyinwaiting


Obviously she was all ready threatening people in the parking lot why do you think he had his camera rolling. So to say there was no immediate threat is wrong. When the woman got near the officer with her knife her training kicked in she did a text book maneuver to disarm wrist lock then the slam. Any body with a knife can kill personally i think she showed restraint this could have gone down another way. She could have drawn her gun advised her to drop the knife. Obviously the woman is not of right mind she would have not done it.Then again officer would say drop the knife this time she would start stepping toward the officer and the officer would shoot her dead. All and all i think this was a better outcome

Originally posted by paraclete1
For those who say "it was just a knife" I'd suggest you look at the photo of knife damage in this article. It's Graphic

fugitivewatch.wordpress.com...

I've seem some 90 year old people whose speed and strenght hasn't deminished to the point where I'd want to try and remove a knife from them.

Really? If you don't have the speed and strength to take away a knife from a 90 year old then I hope you are not a cop. If you are a cop, perhaps it's time to go to the gym and lay off the coffee and doughnuts.... boy!

You gave us a link to a site that showed us an extreme example that is completely unrelated to this incident. We don't know the who, what, when, where, why, how of that knife attack. But in this situation we have a small, frail old lady who is carrying what migh be a butter knife for all we know. Ya don't handle a situation like this in the same manner you would handle a thug with a 8 to 10 inch Bowie knife.

Those top 10 statements people give in defence of cop victims are probably true. But to twist that around to justify ill treatment and even murder of citizens is insensitive. Every situation is different. When given discretionary powers, it is expected that one has the ability to use discretion.

I've seen many bad cop videos. The cops almost always provoke instead of calm the situation. They provoke the situation by being arrogant, demanding, pig headed, rude, and threatening, which is usually followed by physical abuse and a charge for resisting arrest, whether the victim resisted or not.

Good cops know how to calm a situation and how to resolve conflict.

Ah! So that’s the rest of the story.

I saw this a couple days ago on another video site that is not compatible with ATS.

I put together the pic and posted about this on another thread here though, the one about the old guy at the ballgame getting tazed.

I thought the knife was an excuse as I sure didn’t pic one up going frame by frame looking for it.

Anyway, here’s the pic I put together and posted on another thread.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/56853f1594f8.jpg[/atsimg]

It’s good to know the *rest of the story*...

I still wouldn’t of taken down an 87 year old Grandmother who was thin as a stick - but hey - that’s just me...

Originally posted by SphinxMontreal
Seriously, what's wrong with you people in the States? If the women was a threat weilding a weapon, who gives a rats ass what age she was? Cops don't get paid to "wait things out", they get paid to diffuse situations.

Is killing, or causing bodily injury, the answer to all situations? Do you want a society that believes "Might is Right?"

I don't know what "kind" of society you live in, but I want to live in a "kind" society. Kindness begets more kindness. Cruelty begets more cruelty.

Force must be used with discretion, and only to the extent the situation warrants its use. In this case it was not.

hah i think its funny that people are actually saying an 80+ yr old woman was a threat. Even with a knife this woman posed 0 threat to officers. if you watch the video closely the officer took about 5 seconds to implement a judo throw in which you put your leg behind someone and rotate their center of gravity over your leg.... arguably the simplest move to accomplish and if youve never been thrown like that you have no idea how devastating it is. Or notice how the officer keeps twisting an 80 year old woman's arm after shes been subdued and is bleeding from the head severely? Wheres your common sense people? becuase you know... that 80 yr old woman was going to pounce like a cat on her prey as soon as she got the chance... "drats that officer grabbed my knife arm!"


edit to add "Shes friggin 80 wtf is wrong with you people"

[edit on 9-8-2009 by conspiracyrus]

[edit on 9-8-2009 by conspiracyrus]

Knife or no knife I think the COP could have taken her. Why didnt he just kick her cane out from underneath her? But then again you just never know. Some of those Seniors are black belts in Cane.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/c082accadbe8.jpg[/atsimg]

Law enforcement are like any other slice of society - there are good guys, and bad guys.

This situation appeared, by the video, to have been handled correctly. Unfortunate that the woman's head was hurt during the take down but there wasn't any excessive force or brutality. If they had tased or maced her, that could have sent her into cardiac arrest.
She had a knife, bottom line.

What I DO hope happened was that the video guy, as well as a few others heard and seen in that video, were cuffed for obstruction.

They caused an already chaotic and dangerous situation to become more chaotic and even more dangerous.

When an officer has someone down and trying to restrain her/him, it leaves him/her extremely vulnerable to others present on the scene.

I.e. that woman in the yellow was apparently the woman's daughter? She could have very easily grabbed either one of those officer's weapons and shot them - either being deranged herself, or angry b/c she thought the officers were "hurting" her mother.

The video guy continuously repeating over and over to that male cop "Slam me like that, bro" - "Slam me like that, bro". He needed to be escorted out of the parking lot. I hope when the numerous patrol cars pulled in, one of them had the sense to cuff that boy up and haul him off the property.

reply to post by nomorecruelty


once again yeah of course the cop acted appropriately if you account for that elderly woman whipped chuck norris' the day before... there's the real story