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I'm gonna go ahead and say that the police were within bounds to use a taser on this woman. I worked in a psychiatric hospital as a program counselor(think of an orderly for job description) for 9 months. Part of my job was helping restrain patients when they became a danger to themselves or others. So let me just say this, a 56 yr. old woman weilding a knife, in a wheelchair or not, is DANGEROUS*. You would be suprised at how quickly a person you think harmless can move and how quickly they will strike out with little to or warning. Even a police officer moving in tandem with another one could have easily been hurt, maimed or killed trying to subdue the woman in closed proximity. As for a net, it may limit her motion some, but that doesn't mean she wouldn't be able to stab through it when the police moved in to disarm her. Regardless of how ridiculous it may look in your head to picture a woman in a wheelchair as being a danger to police officers, you would be wrong. As for locking her in a room and letting her cool down, what if she had gone into a depressive state realizing she had just threatened her family and killed herself? It is not a safe option to leave someone who is agitated to that extreme by themselves.
*Not that any of the patients I worked with ever got a hold of a knife while at the hospital, but I could just imagine the havoc that would ensue if they did.
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Apathy: The best outlook this side of I don't give a damn.
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