Police Bodyslams 84 Year Old Woman (Please Pass Along)

Please watch the video first: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lznHMoIDRRg

When I first saw this video, I was enraged beyond belief to the point that tears had began to run down my face. There was nothing in me that would allow me to say, "Well, it just happened." I had to have the facts to put my mind at ease. As a result, I have personally spoken with Sgt. D. Kelso of the Whitehall, OH police department regarding this incident and scolded him and his department for not posting a statement on their website to let the public know what actually happened here. Anyway, Sgt. Kelso said that the woman, who is actually 84 years old, has a progressive form of Dementia and was on an outing with her daughter from a nursing home where she lives on August 1, 2009. The daughter stopped at a local Wal-Mart and left her mother in the car napping while she went in to pick up a few items. While in the store, the aging mother wakes up and finds a knife in the vehicle and proceeds to saw through her seat belt and gets out of the car. Now out of the car, she approaches several individuals on the parking lot (including a baby) wielding the knife. Needless to say, like most dementia patients, she is aggravated and confused so her approach may come off as being very aggressive. Some people on the parking lot call the police and give them the impression that there is a woman on the parking lot intentionally looking for people to stab with a knife, so when they arrive, this is what they are going off of. The female officer who approached the elderly woman first, asks her to drop the knife a total of three times and she adamantly refuses. Then for a moment, when the elderly woman's attention is drawn elsewhere, a window of opportunity is open for the female officer to subdue the elderly woman. Here is where the story gets tricky: According to the report, the female officer grabs the elderly woman's arm and pulls it upward to make her drop the knife and supposedly lowers her by that same arm to the ground, still in an attempt to remove the knife from her hand. The report also says that the elderly woman twisted her body to the point where her own weight caused her to hit the ground injuring her head. In the words of the officer, she was not body slammed. Sgt. Kelso went on to say that her injuries were not a bad as they seemed on the video and that the elderly woman was home that evening doing well. Also in an attempt to unsensationalize the story, Sgt. Kelso made the statement to me that this was, "old news" so I asked him just how old and that is when he told me that the incident had occurred on August 1st. Now correct me if I am wrong but, Michael Jackson's death may be old news, the fact that we have an African American President may be old news, but the fact that an elderly woman with impaired mental faculties was brutally brought down and had her skull busted, primarily due to the inexperience of a police office just less than a week prior was not old news! I told Sgt. Kelso that while the actions of the officer was an attempt to diffuse the situation and in the interest of the public safety and the elderly woman, it was far too aggressive and another form of physical management would have been better suited for a woman as frail as she, especially since at the moment of apprehension, she did not seem to post a significant threat to anyone.

Do you think that the officer arresting this woman deserves disciplinary action? If so, call the Whitehall Police Department at 624-237-6333 and express your concerns because I do not believe this story has gotten enough attention. The report number on this case is #0902637. Please pass this story along because in my heart I feel, as though the officer acted improperly in this case and that further training my be in order as opposed to disciplinary action.

It is important that this story gets the coverage it deserves because in the eyes of God, this woman is as valuable to Him and to our society as Mr. Henry Louis Gates and our President was all over that. Had this been your mother, Grand-mother, etc. would you not want to know that someone cares enough to at least stand with you in a time of injustice? It's so funny that the "Gotcha" is this whole situation is that Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton nor the high and mighty Nancy Grace aren't all over this. Why? Because this story has not gotten enough attention to carry a purse full of dollars.

P.S. And if you know me personally, you know why this means so much to me, so pass it along.