CHATSWORTH, GA — Police in north Georgia are defending their use of a Taser to shock an 87-year-old woman who family members say was using a kitchen knife to chop dandelions at a Boys and Girls Club near her home.
Martha al-Bishara, 87, doesn’t speak English. Family members, according to the Daily Citizen-News, say that she was collecting dandelions for a salad on the property of the club in Chatsworth, Georgia, when 911 was called.
The newspaper reports that video of the scene last Friday shows Chatsworth Police Chief Josh Etheridge with a gun drawn on the grandmother and another officer holding a Taser. She can then be heard crying out and can be seen slowly falling to the ground before officers turn her over and handcuff her, the paper reports.
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Police showed the video to a reporter from the local paper but are not releasing it publicly, saying it is part of an ongoing investigation.
“You don’t Tase an 87-year-old woman,” al-Bishara’s great-nephew Solomon Douhne, a former Dalton Police officer, said to the Citizen-News. “She was not a threat. If anything, she was confused and didn’t know what was going on. It was a ridiculous turn of events. If three police officers couldn’t handle an 87-year-old woman, you might want to reconsider hanging up your badge.”
But Etheridge is defending the use of force, saying that al-Bishara would not drop the kitchen knife she was holding. The body-cam video reportedly shows officers repeatedly shouting for her to drop it and Etheridge says he pulled his own pocket knife out and dropped it on the ground to mimic what he wanted al-Bishara to do.
“I completely understand and if I hadn’t been there and it would come across my desk, that is the first thing I would ask as well — why did we Tase an 87-year-old woman?” Etheridge said to the Citizen-News, which covers northwest Georgia. “I guess in that circumstance, I am glad I was there and saw it firsthand and understand why it occurred. An 87-year-old woman with a knife still has the ability to hurt an officer.”
That explanation doesn’t work for some critics.
On Friday, the Georgia chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations called on police to drop all charges against al-Bishara, whom they describe as a Syrian Christian.
“Although law enforcement must often make split-second decisions, the notion that a group of officers could not peacefully handle a 87-year-old woman suffering from dementia boggles the mind,” said CAIR-Georgia staff attorney Murtaza Khwaja. “Electrocuting anyone with a Taser can be dangerous, but using that device on an 87-year-old woman could have easily been deadly.”
Al-Bishara is charged with criminal trespass and obstruction of an officer, both misdemeanors.
She and her 96-year-old husband have reportedly lived next door to the Boys and Girls Club for 22 years. They became naturalized citizens in 2001. There is no fence between their properties at the spot where al-Bishara walked across.
According to a transcript of the 911 call from a Boys and Girls Club employee, police were told al-Bishara didn’t speak English.
“She’s old so she can’t get around too well … ,” the caller says. “Looks like she’s walking around looking for something, like, vegetation to cut down or something. There’s a bag, too.”
When the 911 operator asks if she “came at someone with a knife,” the caller says no.
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“She just (brought) the knife onto the property in her hand. She didn’t try to attack anybody or anything. We haven’t closed in our fence in the back yet and she walked through there,” he said.
No children were outside at the time of the incident.
“She told us she was smiling at them to tell them that she wasn’t a threat … and she was trying to get closer to them to communicate with them, and that’s when they tased her … ,” al-Bishara’s grandson, Timothy Douhne, a medical student, told ABC News.
“We have nothing but love for this county, but within that context, we think that what happened is absolutely ridiculous. If they had calmed down, deescalated the situation, listened a little bit, we wouldn’t be having this issue right now. Unfortunately, that’s not what happened.”
Chatsworth Police did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday from Patch.
Family members told the Citizen-News that al-Bashira is doing OK, but is experiencing stress and having trouble sleeping since the incident. She is due in court next month on the charges against her.
Photo via Murray County Sheriff’s Office