There is no doubt that the police were a little rough on the 95-year-old in the nursing home. From what I can make out is this innocent woman with dementia was shuffling towards the police in her walking frame carrying a large knife.
As a survivor of being in a real situation and being attacked by not one, but two knife wielding assailants, the situation quickly becomes about life or death. You do not have time and the situation is thrust upon you very quickly. I have always said put a knife in the hands of anyone that has deadly intentions be it a 9 year old boy, a female and yes a granny and you have the potential to be cut deeply, many times, before you realise what is happening. The knife is more deadly than a loaded gun.
So, the police used their taser on the old women. All I can say is, she is lucky that the police did not shoot her. The sad thing is, the police just are not trained to disarm an angry person with a knife. When I trained with the worlds best knife exponents in the Philippines, they all had cuts on their limbs and torso where they took a cut from an attackers knife. They all agreed that the best course of action is to run if someone is waving a knife at them. Unfortunately the police had no other option and as violent as it seemed the taser was their best and only choice, other than drawing their weapon and shooting this poor lady.
Can you imagine the uproar if the police had actually shot her. If they attempted to teach police how to disarm someone with a knife, we would have a lot of grieving families. It is pure folly to get close to someone threatening you with a knife. And even if the police were trained to disarm, they just would not get the practise or experience to gain confidence.
To disarm some one with a knife means you have to cross the line and step into their space, and no matter what the offenders size is, you will get cut. Our police force is on the front line of violence, and they are thrust into these situations mostly without warning or experience. So they can only resort to their primal instinct to survive. I feel so sorry that the family has to go through this. To make things worse it is fuelled by the media.
Northstar Ju Jitsu is also taught by senior Black Belts at their own studios'.
These are independently run from the Headquarters .Andy Dickinson Sensei is the head of and founder of Northstar Ju Jitsu and oversees the teaching of his program.
All Black Belts are graded by Andy Dickinson Sensei.
