Cop Tazes 87-Year-Old Woman Who Was Cutting Dandelions

A Georgia police officer is under fire after he used a Taser to subdue an 87-year-old woman who was cutting dandelions near her home. An employee at the Boys and Girls Club in Chatsworth, which is about 85 miles north of Atlanta, called the police to report that a woman was wandering around the property holding a knife. 

He told the 911 dispatcher that no children were present at the time and that the woman had not threatened anybody. 

"She’s old so she can’t get around too well, but looks like she’s walking around looking for something, like, vegetation to cut down or something. There’s a bag, too."

When officers arrived they encountered the 87-year old woman, identified as Martha al-Bishara, and ordered her to drop the knife. The woman did not speak English and did not understand the officers' commands. 

One of the officers pulled out his pocketknife and dropped it to the ground, but the elderly woman continued to hold onto the knife. When she failed to place the knife on the ground, one of the officers shot her with his taser. 

Chatsworth Police Chief Josh Etheridge, who was at the scene, defended the actions of his officer.

"An 87-year-old woman with a knife still has the ability to hurt an officer," he explained. 

He said that using a taser was the best course of action to stop a potential threat.

"There was no anger, there was no malice in this," Etheridge said. "In my opinion, it was the lowest use of force we could have used to simply stop that threat at the time."

The family of al-Bishara disagrees saying that the elderly woman should not have been seen as a threat.

“If three police officers couldn’t handle an 87-year-old woman, you might want to reconsider hanging up your badge,” Solomon Douhne, the woman’s great-nephew, told the Daily Citizen-News of Dalton.

Al-Bishara was taken into custody and was released from the Murray County jail facing charges of criminal trespass and obstructing an officer. 

Douhne spoke with WSB-TV and said that “she’s recovering, you know. Still a little sore from what she’s gone through."

Photo: Murray County Jail


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