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Pondo would have quite likely ended up injured and having injured the patient.
Control and restraint is not something for the amateur. Its much harder than you seem to think
I think restraint done properly is a real skill that needs a lot of training. The only thing I'm claiming here is that, based on the video, I could have disarmed the old boy without the use of pepper spray, baton and taser, and I freely (and multiply) admit I have zero experience or training in such things. I'm not challenging anything that anybody did or says other than the actions of the officer who tasered him.
Coming up next: Pondo on an assault charge for manhandling a 92-year old amputee in a wheelchair.
"Could" is one thing, "should" is another. When my dad was in hospital he kept trying to get out of bed and walk around unassisted when he wasn't able. I brought this up with the staff, I said I was concerned that he's going to have a fall. (He subsequently proved me right and broke his hip.) The staff replied "what do you expect us to do, we're not allowed to restrain him."
Thats rather poor from the staff Cougar. There are steps they can take but its time consuming and onerous and quite possibly if its a general ward they were not aware
I have been thinking about this a little more. I think it would be a 4 person restraint to get the knife off the chap. There is no way one person could do it without serious risk to both.
3 staff to pin him - one to each arm as an arm restraint needs two hands. One to secure his head and one to remove the knife from his hands. Possibly one for his leg as well making 5 staff to do it
As someone who was in the police for 30 years, perhaps I can offer some perspective.
Police officers are trained in control and restrain techniques based an a principle of 'force continuum'; a rising scale of response to increased threat. If they observe or are instructed to attend an incident involving aggression or verbal abuse, the appropriate initial response is verbal instruction to establish control. If the individual fails to comply or kicks off, open handed techniques (taking hold of wrists and elbows) and / or handcuffing is appropriate. If they are boxing or rolling around the ground fighting, they can be struck with batons, sprayed, handcuffed, fast strapped to the legs and pinned down to achieve application of said cuffs / fast straps and to facilitate searching. This can be dangerous if there is a prolonged struggle to achieve control, they are drugged up and go into excited delirium.
If they are carrying any kind of bladed weapon, have issued grave threats and are non compliant, that automatically elevates the response to, at a minimum, drawing batons and/or spray and, if suitably trained and equipped officers are present, drawing taser. Indeed, for large bladed instruments like swords, axes, machetes etc, a firearms response would also be considered. Further warnings are issued with the baton / spray / taser drawn. How it goes from there is dictated by offender compliance. Surrender weapon = de-escalation to verbal control and handcuff to search for secondaries. Fail to comply and its spray to the eyes. Still fail to surrender weapon, taser deployed. It matters not if the subject is mad, bad or sad, 9 or 92, has two, one or no legs. If the knife isn't dropped following verbal instruction, the force continuum applies and matters are escalated, as above, until they are disarmed. What officers should not do, is walk into the 'fighting arc' of the individual, even if blinded by spray. A flailing blunt knife can take an eye, a screwdriver can intrude into the brain, any serrated edge can lacerate an artery.
My own force, Strathclyde, introduced formal officer safety training and modern kit; side handled batons, rigid cuffs and (eventually) body armour, after an officer was stabbed to death by a male with mental health issues. One of the officer safety trainers was only in a training role as he had to be removed from operational duty. He had attended a call of an elderly bus passenger refusing to get off at the terminus. The passenger, while still seated, pulled a knife and severed the tendons in the officer's hand, leaving him permanently debilitated. We were taught that there is no such thing as no risk, only known risk or unknown risk. Bit late for the trainer.
If care home staff have tried to reason with a confused old man far half an hour but he not only refuses to surrender the knife but issues threats to kill, it's hardly their place to surmise, 'nah, he's harmless' and go in to remove the thing. As others have said, old people can be astonishingly stubborn and strong. (I drive emergency ambulances now and while most elderly patients are lovely and happy to see you, UTIs, meds imbalances and dementia can cause them to behave very irrationally and aggressively.) So the police were called, they followed procedure and a tragedy unfolded. His conveyance to hospital would be automatic to flush out the spray, remove the taser barbs and of course observations given his age and vulnerability. Contracting Covid and dying thereafter completed the tragedy and sealed the deal for the utterly terrible optics for the officers and police force concerned.
The officers will have automatically been reported to the CPS (PF up here) as any suspicion of criminality may not be internally investigated by their own force and must be passed to an independent body for investigation; IPOC or PIRC up here. CPS / PF then consider the case and, if there's any possibility that there's substance in the allegation, it goes to trial. I didn't follow the trial but I'd imagine the force continuum would have featured in their defence.
Why so quick to spray / taser? Dunno. None of us were there or party to the info given by staff to the cops. He'd had half an hour and seemed pretty determined not to play ball, perhaps that brought matters forward, who knows? I'd probably have given him a few mins of my own explanation as to how nasty spray and taser are and it would very much have been in his interests to comply. He may have responded positively but he really didn't seem to be listening. As for a longish standoff akin to a firearms siege, these are shift cops with several more calls of a similar or possibly more urgent nature to attend. They're always under pressure to be four places at once. All the more reason to attempt to talk him down I suppose but as I say, none of us was there.
Anyway, that's the Force Continuum, which they seem to have (rather quickly) followed. Unless there's a witch-hunt, I doubt the internal misconduct hearing outcome will be much different from the trial.
Ta downshep
Seems to me that like many incidents there is not one failing here but multiple each one of which is not dangerous but taken together are
Starting with the patients condition not being escalated quicker and ending with poor infection control in the hospital leading to him getting covid
He'd had half an hour and seemed pretty determined not to play ball, perhaps that brought matters forward, who knows? I'd probably have given him a few mins of my own explanation as to how nasty spray and taser are and it would very much have been in his interests to comply.
The 92 was actually given the knife by staff to cut his food, when he made threats to murder people he was relocated to his bedroom, it doesn't sound as if he was very much in control of the situation so his unwillingness to play ball doesn't seem to have been hugely relevant, they could apparently wheel him around the care home!
Upon their arrival, Donald had been relocated to his bedroom by care home staff and was sitting in his wheelchair holding a round-pointed adapted cutlery knife. The officers entered Donald’s bedroom without attempting to gather contextual information about the preceding events or about Donald’s condition from the care home staff. They did not take any steps to explain their presence to Donald, nor did they employ de-escalation tactics but instead immediately threatened, and then executed significant force against the elderly man.
The officers’ interaction with Donald lasted only 80 seconds, during which PAVA incapacitant spray, a baton and a taser were used on the 92-year-old.
Donald was handcuffed by officers and thereafter conveyed to hospital, where he died three weeks later, then aged 93, on 13 July 2022.
https://www.inquest.org.uk/donald-burgess-sussex-police-officers-acquitted
I am surprised that after all that they still needed to handcuff him.
It will be interesting to hear what the gross misconduct hearing concludes.
Really interesting, thank you @downshep.
"Could" is one thing, "should" is another.
Fortunately, I don't think I've claimed anywhere that, before calling the police, care home staff should "Deploy Pondo". 🙂
Thats rather poor from the staff Cougar. There are steps they can take but its time consuming and onerous and quite possibly if its a general ward they were not aware
It's rather more complicated than that. It's probably off topic for here, I'll take it to FB once I've eaten.
I'm massively out of date, which is one of several reasons for me not taking a deeper dive into this. TASER wasn't on general release in my day but was confined to firearms officers and a couple of other units and I've never handled one. I'm of the CS and Captor generation.
The officers will have automatically been reported to the CPS (PF up here) as any suspicion of criminality may not be internally investigated by their own force and must be passed to an independent body for investigation
The only difference in E&W is that the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) will either supervise an investigation by police investigators or will conduct the investigation completely.
In the case of the Manchester Airport assault I was confident in the outcome and the exoneration of the police officers concerned when the shortened video was first reported.
I've struggled to see the proportionality of some actions throughout this one, but I haven't heard all of the evidence that the jury heard. I also don't have the benefit of understanding modern policy and training.
The disciplinary hearing will shed further light on parts of this case that didn't make it to Court. There's a sliding scale on the burden of proof depending on the issue under investigation; some will require a lower threshold
2.6.5
Occasions will arise where it is necessary to use incapacitant spray on persons whose violent behaviour is due to a mental disorder or illness.
In such cases, where it is practicable, advice should be sought from mental health professionals present at the scene. In pre-planned joint activities such discussions could form part of the briefing and risk assessment for the event.
Consultation with friends, relatives etc. who are likely to know the person well may also assist in deciding on the most appropriate use of force response.
The final decision to use the spray in these circumstances will rest with the officer concerned.Chief officers are encouraged to consider local protocols with health authorities/social services in this respect.
(ACPO Guidance on the use of Incapacitant Spray Dated: 04/11/2010 V2) Still freely available online and contemporaneous to me, unlike newer versions that are secure