A 95-year-old Australian woman died on Wednesday, a week after she was tasered by a police officer at her retirement home, police said the woman was “armed with a knife”.
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“It is with great sadness that we confirm the death of Clare Nowland, 95, in Cooma this evening,” New South Wales (southeast) state police said in a statement. She passed away “peacefully” in hospital surrounded by her family and loved ones, she continued.
A few hours earlier, a 33-year-old police officer, who was suspended from his duties, had been charged in connection with this case for, among other things, having recklessly inflicted serious bodily harm. He will appear in court on July 5.
Clare Nowland had been in critical condition in hospital since being hit by electronic stun gun fire on May 17 in an incident that has shocked Australians to their core.
Police had been called to the Yallambee Lodge nursing home in southern New South Wales by staff who told them a woman was ‘armed with a knife’.
They said they urged Clare Nowland to drop the serrated meat knife before she walked towards them, “at a slow pace”, using her walker, prompting one of the officers to do use of his taser against her.
Calls for the opening of a parliamentary inquiry in New South Wales and the dissemination of images taken by the body camera of the offending policeman had been issued following this case.
The fact that Ms Nowland was targeted with a taser “has sparked outrage among the people of the state which shows how desperately we need police reform,” the MP hammered this week. local environmentalist Sue Higginson.