Dangerous 95 year old man with a walker update
by digby
More information has emerged about the incident last week in which police felt the need to “subdue” a 95 year old man who used a walker with tasers and a bean bag shots — and killed him in the process:
The old man, described by a family member as “wobbly” on his feet, had refused medical attention. The paramedics were called. They brought in the Park Forest police.
First they tased him, but that didn’t work. So they fired a shotgun, hitting him in the stomach with a bean-bag round. Wrana was struck with such force that he bled to death internally, according to the Cook County medical examiner.
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I wasn’t at the scene, and maybe the police have a good explanation. But common sense tells me that cops don’t need a Taser or a shotgun to subdue a 95-year-old man.And after doing some digging, I found there are two versions of events: The police version, and a new picture that raises questions of whether John Wrana was killed unnecessarily.
The Park Forest police version is that on the night of July 26, John Wrana, a resident of the Victory Centre senior living facility, threatened staff and paramedics with a 2-foot-long metal shoehorn and a metal cane. The police statement neglects to mention that the old man also used a walker, at least according to photographs supplied by Grapsas.
“Attempts were made verbally to have the resident comply with demands to drop the articles, to no avail,” the police statement reads. “The resident then armed himself with a 12-inch butcher type kitchen knife.”
But lawyer Grapsas says that Wrana’s family never saw a knife in his room and that staff also told him Wrana didn’t have such a knife.
“So where did the knife come from?” Grapsas asked.
The police statement leaves the impression that the staff was under threat, leaving police with no choice other than to shoot him.
But according to Maria Oliva, an executive with Pathway Senior Living, the staff was kept out of the room after police arrived. So there was no imminent threat to staff.
“The staff was not inside once the police were on the scene,” Oliva told us. “At different times the staff were in there, but not when they were called. They (the police) were in charge at that point.”
Police said there had been threats made against the staff. But Grapsas said he was told that staff begged to be allowed to try to calm down the old man.
“If there were threats to the staff, why did the staff want to intervene and say, ‘Let us handle this; we’ll get him calmed down’?” he asked.
Grapsas says he was told that police used a riot shield to come through the door before shooting bean-bag rounds at the old man as he sat in his chair.
Riot shields are used to push back mobs of angry young protesters in the streets, or against dangerous convicts in prison cells, not to subdue an old, old man in a chair.
“At some point, I’m told there were between five and seven police officers, they went back to the room with a riot shield in hand, entered the door and shot him with a shotgun that contained bean-bag rounds,” Grapsas said.
People say “the whole world is a battlefield, including the homeland” and this is the perfect example of why that’s increasingly true. These officers with their military gear and warlike mindset don’t see citizens. They see an enemy. And when you see citizens as the enemy, even a 95 year old man will be considered potentially lethal.
Most veteran cops I talked to suspect this is a case of unnecessary force. I’ve never met a police officer who couldn’t handle a 95-year-old man in a walker. And John Wrana wasn’t Jason Bourne. He was an old war veteran who didn’t want to be pushed around.
But one senior police official who has trained police recruits in defensive tactics had a different take.
“When I first heard it, I was like, ‘C’mon,'” he said. “Then I thought it through. We don’t know what occurred. We don’t know what information they had at that time. If you don’t have all of the facts, it’s hard to judge someone. … Anyone can be dangerous.”
I’m sorry, anyone with even the slightest bit of common sense would know that using such force against a 95 year old man could easily kill him. Clearly they didn’t take the time to properly assess the situation or they never would have used these tactics. They just saw him as a dangerous enemy to be subdued by any means necessary.
On the night of the incident, he wound up at Advocate Christ Medical Center. The doctor was on the phone with Mangerson, telling her that even if Wrana survived surgery, he’d likely be on life support. Wrana wanted to talk to her. The doctor held the phone up to his ear, she said.
“He just said, ‘Thank you for everything you’ve done for me. I love you and goodbye,'” Mangerson recalled, her voice cracking. “That was it.”
Jesus.
.