A 95-year-old great-grandmother died on Wednesday a week after being verbally abused by an Australian police officer at her care home, police said. The woman, Clare Nowland, “passed away peacefully in hospital just after 7pm this evening, surrounded by family and loved ones,” New South Wales Police said in a statement.
An Australian police officer was charged on Wednesday with triple assault for verbally abusing Nowland, who has dementia.
An undated file picture from family video shows Australian great-grandmother Clare Nowlands, who died from injuries sustained in a fall while being verbally abused by police at her New South Wales care home. Portal
The 33-year-old senior police officer was charged with negligent aggravated assault, assault with actual assault and aggravated assault, police said in a statement.
The officer, who was suspended on pay, will appear in court on July 5.
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“The investigation into the critical incident is ongoing,” the police said.
Officers were called to the Yallambee Lodge care home in southern New South Wales by staff and told them a woman was “armed with a knife”.
Police said responding officers told Nowland to drop a serrated steak knife before she “slowly” approached them with her walker, prompting an officer to fire his taser at her.
Andrew Thaler, businessman and community leader from New South Wales, Australia, holds up his phone with a photo of Clare Nowland, May 19, 2023. Portal
Local businessman and community leader Andrew Thaler told Australian television shortly after the incident that Nowland was “about five feet tall and weighs a whopping 100 pounds”. [about 95 pounds]She cannot walk alone without a walker.
“Using a taser when a kind word was all she needed, when she was confused – which is the case with people with dementia – she needed kind words and support and help,” Thaler said. “She didn’t need the force of the law, so to speak.”
Some politicians are calling for a parliamentary inquiry into the New South Wales region and the release of police bodycam video of the confrontation.
“Ms Nowland’s abuse has sparked an outrage in the community that shows how badly we need police reform,” state lawmaker Sue Higginson of the Green Party said this week. “The refusal to release the bodycam footage shields New South Wales Police from public scrutiny for all the wrong reasons – the New South Wales community has a right to know exactly what happened when Clare Nowland was abused , so that we can take the necessary steps for change.”
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