The moment a 95-year-old grandma with a Zimmer frame was tasered at her nursing home in Australia was caught on bodycam footage, police have said.
The incident has left mother-of-eight and dementia sufferer Clare Nowland with critical injuries and her family now "expects her to die".
Police say Clare was "armed with a steak knife" and approaching police “slowly” using a walking frame when they tasered her inside the Yallambee Lodge aged care home in Cooma, New South Wales [NSW].
Assistant Commissioner Peter Cotter said to reporters the incident was captured on the officer’s body camera and would now form part of a critical incident investigation led by homicide squad detectives.
Police said her critical injuries were from striking her head on the floor, rather than directly from the taser's debilitating electric shock.
He said: “It is confronting footage. It forms a significant and integral part of the investigation and it is not in the public interest to be releasing that."
The incident has sparked global outrage and prompted a debate about NSW state police's use of taser-brand conducted energy devices or stun guns.
Cotter declined to say whether he thought a police officer with 12 years experience had used excessive force by firing a stun gun twice at a 5ft 2ins and 6.7st "much loved" elderly woman.
He said: "At the time she was tasered, she was approaching police. But it is fair to say at a slow pace. She had a walking frame. But she had a knife. I can't take it any further as to what was going through anyone's mind."
The great-grandmother's family said she may have been making toast with a butter knife at 4 am when police fired.
Nicole Lee, president of the advocacy group People with Disability Australia, said she was shocked by the violence.
"She's either one hell of an agile, fit, fast and intimidating 95-year-old woman, or there's a very poor lack of judgement on those police officers and there really needs to be some accountability on their side," Lee told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
Lee understands the police had to be guarded in their response but it was “a little bit dehumanising and a little unempathetic”.
She continued: “Dementia is very challenging and it changes who people are and people can get quite aggressive and that aggression is coming from a place of fear and confusion for the individual who’s suffering with the condition."
Cotter said the police officer who fired the stun gun was currently "not in the workplace," but it is unclear whether the officer has been suspended.
NSW Deputy Premier Prue Car said what occurred was “very concerning”.
“Obviously, our thoughts go out to the family of this woman that has gone through a pretty horrific situation,” she said.
Patrick McGrath, the director of community engagement at St Vincent de Paul – the charity where Clare volunteered locally for 50 years – has known Clare his whole life and told 2GB’s Ben Fordham on Friday that the family was devastated by what happened.
He said: “She was always doing something for the community, always all her life she was active. It doesn’t look good.”
Pat said when Clare was in her 80s her children paid for her to go skydiving.
