From the weird news category, a 72 year old Texas woman was tasered to the ground by a police officer after refusing to do as he asked. The police officer apparantly did not feel that he had the strength to control the old lady, as he resorted to the taser gun. In his defense, the old lady was being argumentative. That is a good reason to use a taser gun, right?
The 72 year old grandmother’s name is Kathryn Winkfein, and she is planning to sue the police after the incident. The entire incident began when Kathryn was pulled over for speeding. She had just come from doing her weekly shopping in Austin. Oddly, the old woman was threatened again as she was on the ground writhing in pain. The incredibly stupid question here is, was this level of force necessary?
Answering that question seems almost rediculous. Entertaining the notion that a large police officer can not handle a 72 year old grannie without tasing her is completely insane. How the officer ever thought that he would come through that situation unscathed is beyond me. A 72 year old woman could easily go into cardiac arrest after being hit with 50,000 volts from a taser gun. What was he thinking, exactly?
My guess is that this lady will get paid handsomely for this incident. She was acting like an idiot and deserved to be arrested, but the use of a taser gun on a woman that age is paramount to using deadly force. She easily could have died from the incident. With that said, the officer should be charged just as if they shot an unarmed man in my opinion. The use of force was way out of proportion to the situation and criminal in nature.
On Fox news, the argument was made that the officer was trying to save her from traffic. Please. The traffic was nowhere near that woman when she got tased. This was a clear cut case of a police officer abusing their power. I am usually the person that supports the police, but this was insane. The woman is lying on the ground screaming in pain, and the officer is threatening to shoot her again for heaven’s sake.
This might be a different story if the woman was wanted for murder, or armed in some way. This woman was pulled over for speeding. No senior citizen should ever be tased for saying the wrong thing. For once, I would like to see this officer have the book thrown at him. Maybe he will think twice before tasing old ladies.
The part of this that is so crazy is that the officer was a big guy. He was not some little scrawny policeman. This was a hulking Texas lawman that would have had no trouble turning people around and cuffing them.
If he felt that was not possible, then he should have waited on help to arrive. Then the two officers could have taken her into custody with a minimum of violence. The first instinct to tase this woman is where the officer was wrong. He should have never even had that cross his mind as an option, much less actually do it. There are at least five better decisions he could have made.
At least Grannie will get paid.
