Out. Of. Control. Dateline Kamloops, British Columbia - Three Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers apparently couldn’t subdue an elderly patient. The sadistic sickness continues. BTW, you can see pics of the man’s stun gun burns at the CBC site.
Frank Lasser, 82, appeared fragile Thursday when he showed the stun gun marks on his body and talked about the ordeal he went through Saturday.The article also refers to the Taser as “the conducted energy weapon.”“They [police] should have known I had bypass surgery,” Lasser told CBC News.
Lasser has had heart surgery and needs to carry an apparatus to supply oxygen at all times. He was in the Royal Inland Hospital Saturday due to pneumonia but has since been released.
RCMP said nurses called police after Lasser became delirious and pulled a knife out of his pocket.
Lasser told CBC News that he sometimes become delusional when he can’t breathe properly. He said he couldn’t explain why he refused to let go of the knife even after the Mounties arrived.
“I was laying on the bed by then and the corporal came in, or the sergeant, I forget which it was, and said to the guys, ‘OK, get him because we got more important work to do on the street tonight,’” Lasser said.
Hat tip, Shane.
26 Responses to “Canada: 82-year old heart patient Tased in hospital bed”
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Cool! And I always thought the RCMP weren’t as hard-assed as cops in the US. Guess they’re picking up tips from their American brothers.
I can’t wait to hear about the first good taser use at an “assisted living facility”, followed by video of cops using tasers at a preschool. “I’ll give you something to cry about!!!”…
Hey, with all the injured vets back from being mangleed in Iraq, I bet rehab hospitals and facilities could be the next great frontier for taseration. All those guys with PTSD having flashbacks, high on painkillers, many of them para’s and quad’s - sounds like a great excuse for some Hawt Taser Action!
What marvelous times we live in!…
Pam - thanks so much for your continuing focus on this latest street torture device. We’ve got the RNC coming to our town and I’m just sure that the Saint Paul cops will be using those 50 tasers that they bought special for the event.
Keep the focus on these creepy devices, pls!
What nihilix said.
The cops are stupid shits and their RCMP should be bloody embarassed as this really lowers their reputation as trained professionals.
That said, WTF is up with the care facility not checking for these things????? Yes, the elderly DO get paranoid and DO get delirious and DO manage to pack guns and knives when they do! They are no different from anybody else in extremes of psychological issues, just older and with more obvious causes to their distress.
My grandmother had COPD and occasionally got rather strange when her saturation levels dropped, just like this guy. The hospitals did, however, routinely check for such things, and once the long term supported care facility found a LOADED GUN in her possession (she apparently had it before she got there and brought it with).
Multiple Idiot Demerits to the cops, Bonus Stupid Points to the care facility.
When does Cookie show up to tell us how incredibly dangerous elderly heart patients are and how the cops had no choice but to preserve their own lives against a 82-year-old man?
Also, I’ve started wondering when the lives of cops became so much more important than the lives of citizens that it’s now acceptable to kill unarmed people in the name of preserving the cop’s life. Isn’t part of being a cop knowing that you could well die in the line of duty?
I’m all for taking rational protective measures (bulletproof vests, etc.) but we seem to have gotten to the point where a cop’s life is considered more important than the life of someone in the general public. That seems like a bad, bad trend.
Exactly. What ever happened to, you know, “protect and serve”?
When does Cookie show up to tell us how incredibly dangerous elderly heart patients are and how the cops had no choice but to preserve their own lives against a 82-year-old man?
I’m personally waiting for Mold to show up and explain that the UCC (the Uniform Commercial Code, which he apparently thinks governs taser use) totally allows the cops to tase 82 year-old heart patients.
Cops are cops, even in Canada.
I’m not even sure why the nurses called police. I have friends who work in mental health facilities, and they are all trained to disarm and subdue patients who become violent. Even without this training, I’m pretty sure my tiny ass could take a knife away from an old man in a bed with minimal harm to myself. Seriously.
The problem with cops is, only a dickhead with a major chip on his shoulder would want to be one. There’s no reason that wouldn’t be true everywhere, not just in the U.S.
Oh — his or her shoulder, I should say. And I guess females aren’t routinely called “dickheads.” But that’s another discussion.
I used to work for a couple of RNs unions, and the nearly-universal consensus among RNs was that elderly, delusional patients are the most dangerous patents to deal with. A constant complaint of RNs was that hospitals have all become “restraint free” mainly for PR purposes, not because it advances patient care. So a patient with multiple lines going into his body and who is also suffering from dementia can lose it all of a sudden and start thrashing around and pulling lines out, which is life-threatening — the RN needs to control the patient and redo all the lines, but the patient is biting, kicking, and hitting the RN. It’s very dangerous for everyone.
Tasering any patient is incredibly dangerous and stupid. And maybe this particular patient wouldn’t have been in restraints, anyway. But delusional/demented 82-year-olds actually are a physical threat to caregivers, and hospitals need to figure out a way to keep the patients and the caregivers safe — without having cops or security guards running around tasing people.
Pesto has a point. Tasers are a really stupid response to the danger demented patients pose to others and themselves. (Speaking as the grandson of someone who used to go after nurses and orderlies with a wooden cane.)
I was a little surprised over people commenting that he wouldn’t have been much of a threat. My grandfather died at 95. At 82, he would have been a threat unarmed, let alone with a knife.
Anybody with a knife is a threat. It takes very little force to do a large amount of damage, and if the person is not in full control this can lead to tragic consequences for any/all involved. I’ve studied self-defense for a lot of years, and I can tell you in all honesty I’d much rather be up close and personal with a gun than a knife. Seriously; if he’s in reach, a knife is more dangerous (this changes with distance, obviously).
Point is: person with knife=extremely dangerous. Don’t care that he’s 82; he’s holding a knife that could cut open something I really don’t want him to. Don’t blame them for calling the police, though it was an act of cruel idiocy to use tasers on him. Talking him down would be best, but I’m sure cops have some ideas on how to take a knife from a confused person. I know I do.
sigh…earlier this week the dating column in my local paper was written by a (female) cop, warning women not to date The Badge. Her advice was:
“Never forget, this job attracts hotheads, people with axes to grind and psychopaths who are good at covering stuff up, as well as a few cowards. Be wary!”
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/columnists/advice/chi-0430talesapr30,0,4360155.column
so i guess even the COPS know how out of line many of them are. why does this not make me feel better?
Agree (obviously) with those who say the taser is an unacceptable response, but also with those who say “don’t underestimate the elderly.” My wife used to work in assisted living homes, and there’s a reason the attendants wear breakaway lanyards to hold their ID badges.
[mold]
Obviously the police were justified in this. For all they knew, he could have had a cybernetic skeleton implanted rather than bypass surgery. He could have been a reverse Iron Man!
Remember, without the taser option, the cops would have had to shoot this guy instead. Would you all rather have that!?
I have had to manhandle plenty of elderly perps in my day. Extremely dangerous, especially before 3 pm.
[/mold]
Without comment.
Has anyone else noticed that all these Canadian taser cases so far have been out of BC? (If there are cases to the contrary, I haven’t seen ‘em, at least.)
You’re right, I would have thought we’d be getting these reports out of Alberta (suposedly the most conservative province).
Anyone wanna place bets on when our Taser-worshipping authoritarian rights-surrender-monkey friends will be showing up to tell us all how stupid we are and how we just need to shut up and let police do what they want because they’re our masters?
Didn’t there used to be a rule where every time a cop who wanted to use a tazer had to be tazed with the thing first? And then they got rid of the rule, because - I’m guessing - it was too good of an idea?
Without comment.
Where I come from, “tazer parties” is where you get drunk and take turns shocking each other with low-voltage tazers.
Pesto is bang on.
The RCMP here were impatient, and acted improperly.
Yeah, this is truly horrible, but I also had the first reaction of “wtf were the nurses doing calling the police?” yes, absolutely, delusional patients, including the elderly, can be dangerous, but they’re also fucking ILL. The hospital needs to sedate and then deal with the reason for the behavior for christ’s sake. (and yes, I worked in a psychiatric hospital. never once did we call outside police for a problem patient. that’s just ridiculous).
Totally what I thought I was going to see when I first clicked that headline.
what you are seeing is a joint action between the u.s. policing services and the canadian services.
look up the nau and the spp.
Canada is changing.
there is a secretive pact between canada, the us and mexico.
they will soon form what will be called the americas.
we will be policed by police trained by the u.s. military, the military itself and a company called blackwater.
private military contractors that are unaccountable to even the law. They shoot to kill.
They are in iraq now and if they kill innocent people there is no red tape like with the army.
Harper has sold us down the road and hardly anyone knows about it.
We will lose our land, our sovereignty, our water rights, and maybe even our lives.
look it up…research…
don’t be left in the dark…
most of the media now is corporate owned…
the corporations control the government…
hence..lack of informatoin..
you have the internet now…it won’t be for long…they want to control it like they do in china…get informed