any person who comes at anyone other person with a knife gets what they get. period.
what's up with not puttin the fact the old chick's got a knife in the headline or the text, hamilton?
- almost lookin like you just want to rile peeps up... like glen douchebeck who you diss for doin the same thing..
yo?
@gnipgnop: Gee, even if she is demented or delirious from a medical illness?
I've been punched, kicked, spat at, etc by quite a few elderly patients in the ER. When I did EMS I sometimes had to get these folks out of their homes onto an ambulance stretcher - and a few times that involved disarming them (knife, bat, etc.) It may be that they are demented at baseline or they may be functional until something like urosepsis intervenes and makes an elder who was previously functional temporarily whacked out of his mind.
Suggesting that she got what she deserved is like saying a 4 year old child got what she deserved if she was doing the same thing. What the cop did was unconscionable and shows she's either ill-trained or honestly chicken-shit. If you can't take down an 87 year old lady who walks with a cane (even if she has a *scaaaaary* paring knife) you shouldn't be a cop, a doctor, or a paramedic.
Give it 20 years and scenes like this will be so commonplace they won't even rate a second look. We're about the see the gerontology of the most entitled generation of douchebags who ever lived. Just wait till the Boomers all start getting Alzheimer's. Oy.
Uncle_Billy_Slumming promoted this comment
Edited by The Curse of Millhaven at 08/07/09 7:13 PM
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@aurora*raby: Especially since you see a customer walking within a few feet of the old lady right before the cops intervene. If this woman was such a threat, why wasn't anyone else, uh, threatened.
@Botswana Meat Commission FC: Probably because it's no one else's job to disarm her. The cops have three choice: hand to hand, intermediate weapons (i.e. taser, pepper spray, club) or a gun. What the cop did was ask her to put the knife down twice. The woman pointed it at her and then lowered it. The cop then grabbed the wrist holding the knife and took her to the ground. It's a pretty standard knife defense.
"Y'all get real footage with this shit," cameraman says as he runs forward and essentially ruins his view of the (potentially legally) crucial moment.
America, can we please agree to stand still while we film the atrocities around us?
If the old woman had been at all able-bodied, I might have understood the necessity of getting the knife away immediatly. But she's moving at a snail's pace with a cane; who could she have possibly attacked with the knife? The cop should have tried another tactic before the body slam. Seriously. No need.
Though what I really want to know is...why did the daughter have a steak knife in her front seat? Does the Steak & Shake drive-thru provide metal cutlery?
@Atilla the Bun: Okay, I'm going to agree with this comment as it seems both measured and rational. The officer could have cleared others away from her and then tried to negotiate the knife away. Or the slow old lady could have just dropped the knife on the ground. I do think that the officer was seizing an opportunity that she saw to end this quickly.
This old woman posed absolutely no threat to anyone at the time the cop began the interaction.
Granted, a person with a knife can be dangerous but only so far as they get get within stabbing range. Clearly this old woman, walking at a snail's pace, with a cane, obviously confused, would have had no chance of hurting anyone, so long as they were out of arm's reach, and that was certainly the situation in that parking lot. Therefore, the cop escalated the situation by not trying to talk to this woman for more than the time it took to bark orders at her.
In fact the cop put herself in danger by applying the takedown because it was then that she had most chance to be cut by the knife.
Seriously, the cop who first made contact could have tried harder to convince the old lady that she was safe and no one would hurt her, let other cops try to find a relative, or just distract the old lady and then grab the knife out of her hand (easier said than done, I know, but within the realm of possible.)
That take down could have killed the old woman or broken her hip.
Really, that cop jumped the gun with excessive force.
Old lady has a knife, cop asks old lady to put the knife down, old lady and cop get tangled up, cop takes her down.
Sorry, having a hard time getting worked up over this. I understand she's old, I understand she's having some sort of mental issue. What do you expect the cop to do? It's not like she shot or tazed an unarmed old woman. She took her to the ground and got the knife away. Pretty textbook, if you ask me.
Also, I love how her family took her to the hospital, then claimed *afterwards* that her "hand may have been broken". Uh, what? Why don't you leave that to the experts to determine? You know, the experts where you just were? Someone's setting up a lawsuit.
@badasscat: Your soul is a desert. There were two cops. They could have done a passive, two-person restraint on her without dropping her. What's wrong with you?
@badasscat: So you have no qualms about physically handling an 80+ year old woman with a cane and obviously confused the same way as you would a 20 year old three times her weight? Really? This is totally cool with you? What if it were your mother or grandmother?
@badasscat: Really? I'm not too worked up either because the cop didn't punch her or shoot her, but was the arm drag really necessary? I've forcefully taken chocolate out of a Rottweiler's mouth using less force.
@shack13: Or one cop could have questioned her real nasty like and gotten in her face, then the other cop could have told the first cop to settle down and talked real sweet to her. I call this routine "One Cop Who Is Mean, One Cop Who Is Nice."
@Fry_Bread_Power: Do you think this was some sort of viral cross-marketing ploy by the geniuses at Comedy Central? The timing on this is quite perfect.
08/08/09
what's up with not puttin the fact the old chick's got a knife in the headline or the text, hamilton?
- almost lookin like you just want to rile peeps up... like glen douchebeck who you diss for doin the same thing..
yo?
08/08/09
I've been punched, kicked, spat at, etc by quite a few elderly patients in the ER. When I did EMS I sometimes had to get these folks out of their homes onto an ambulance stretcher - and a few times that involved disarming them (knife, bat, etc.) It may be that they are demented at baseline or they may be functional until something like urosepsis intervenes and makes an elder who was previously functional temporarily whacked out of his mind.
Suggesting that she got what she deserved is like saying a 4 year old child got what she deserved if she was doing the same thing. What the cop did was unconscionable and shows she's either ill-trained or honestly chicken-shit. If you can't take down an 87 year old lady who walks with a cane (even if she has a *scaaaaary* paring knife) you shouldn't be a cop, a doctor, or a paramedic.
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Bolos would be the cats pajamas! Even cowboy roping would be a cool trick.
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Or Star Trek, but watching a cop take down an 80 year old lady is no longer in the real of sci fi.
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Live long and DON'T NET ME BRO!
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America, can we please agree to stand still while we film the atrocities around us?
08/07/09
Though what I really want to know is...why did the daughter have a steak knife in her front seat? Does the Steak & Shake drive-thru provide metal cutlery?
08/08/09
08/07/09
Granted, a person with a knife can be dangerous but only so far as they get get within stabbing range. Clearly this old woman, walking at a snail's pace, with a cane, obviously confused, would have had no chance of hurting anyone, so long as they were out of arm's reach, and that was certainly the situation in that parking lot. Therefore, the cop escalated the situation by not trying to talk to this woman for more than the time it took to bark orders at her.
In fact the cop put herself in danger by applying the takedown because it was then that she had most chance to be cut by the knife.
Seriously, the cop who first made contact could have tried harder to convince the old lady that she was safe and no one would hurt her, let other cops try to find a relative, or just distract the old lady and then grab the knife out of her hand (easier said than done, I know, but within the realm of possible.)
That take down could have killed the old woman or broken her hip.
Really, that cop jumped the gun with excessive force.
08/07/09
08/07/09
Sorry, having a hard time getting worked up over this. I understand she's old, I understand she's having some sort of mental issue. What do you expect the cop to do? It's not like she shot or tazed an unarmed old woman. She took her to the ground and got the knife away. Pretty textbook, if you ask me.
Also, I love how her family took her to the hospital, then claimed *afterwards* that her "hand may have been broken". Uh, what? Why don't you leave that to the experts to determine? You know, the experts where you just were? Someone's setting up a lawsuit.
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No one wants to see an old lady get taken down.
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