Top police officers removed key details from a public statement on the Tasering of elderly aged care resident Clare Nowland.
Under a freedom of information request byHerald reporter Olivia Ireland,an email exchange between the executive director of NSW Police public affairs Liz Deegan and duty officers at the media unit shows how a proposed media release about the confrontation was sanitised to remove all mention of a Taser,a knife and the victim’s movements. Deegan even queried the need to list the woman’s age.
Eventually,a 71-word release,approved by Police Commissioner Karen Webb,was issued 12 hours after the early morning incident. It provided little information other than announcing a critical incident investigation had been launched because the woman had been injured during an interaction with police. “No further details are available at this time,” it said.
However,a draft media release,prepared six hours earlier,described how police had found the woman armed with a knife and when “she stood up and moved towards officers,a Taser was deployed by a constable”. But when the draft was sent higher up for review it was cut in half. Webb later defended the omissions. “It was important the family was informed of the situation in a factual matter before we went public on it,” she said. Police sat on the details for two days before they leaked and eventually released the original media statement.
Clare Nowland was tasered during the confrontation with police while walking with a frame and holding a steak knife at Yallambee Lodge in Cooma on May 17. She died in hospital on May 24. NSW Police Senior Constable Kristian White has been charged with recklessly causing grievous bodily harm,assault occasioning actual bodily harm and common assault. He is due to appear in court next month and intends to fight the charges.
In a discussion with 2GB’s Chris O’Keefe on Wednesday afternoon (which could best be described as a friendly chat rather than a serious interview),Webb stood by the description of the Tasering as an “interaction” with Nowland and said she would do nothing different in hindsight. It was a breathtaking defence of the indefensible.
The use of a Taser on a 95-year-old woman seems inexplicable. The seemingly brutal use of force by the NSW Police against such a frail assailant has rightly shocked the nation. For the people of NSW,it has also prompted the kind of disbelief and disquiet at heavy-handed police behaviour that erupted in 2012 after Brazilian student died when Tasered in the Sydney CBD.
Following that death,police procedures were tightened and officers told never to use Tasers on people who were elderly,had a disability,didn’t weigh much,or were at risk of further injury,such as a brain injury,if they fell.
TheHerald has previously supported police being equipped with Tasers. But the Cooma Tasering has cast the weapon in a new light and has turned it into one of the most serious reputation incidents for NSW Police for several years. The decision by senior NSW Police to pull down the shutters and close ranks in this instance reveals a culture that has confused public relations with public responsibility.
And we do depend on responsible police for so much. For example,a fifth deputy commissioner was appointed last year to oversee and co-ordinate emergency services’ response to future natural disasters following recommendations from an independent report into the NSW floods to merge the State Emergency Service and the NSW Rural Fire Service.
Overseeing two such formerly headstrong services requires openness and commitment to the flow of information,two attributes senior NSW Police conspicuously failed to display in dealing with the Cooma tragedy. Regrettably,such an under siege mentality at the top undermines confidence the NSW Police should be trusted with greater responsibilities.