87-year-old Ore. woman Tasered to death by local cops

87-year-old Ore. woman dies after hit by stun gun

By TIM FOUGHT, Associated Press

Phyllis Owens apparently didn't know day from night when she died at 87, an hour after sheriff's deputies closed in on her as she reached for a handgun, an officer said Friday.

"We had to respond," said Detective Jim Strovink of the Clackamas County sheriff's office. An officer hiding in the shrubbery around her rural home jolted the frail woman with a stun gun Thursday afternoon, and she collapsed unconscious. She died soon after in the hospital. The autopsy report said her heart disease was the cause of death.

Two Clackamas sheriff's deputies had gone to her wooded housing development near Boring after a man using a backhoe to replace her water line reported that she had threatened him with a handgun, Strovink said. It was about 2:30 p.m. "She came out waving the gun and had him up against the backhoe," Strovink said. "She yelled at him, 'What are you doing here at this time of night?'"

The worker called for help, and deputies arrived to find the woman on her porch, Strovink said. Approaching her, they talked her into putting down the weapon, he said, but she quickly picked it up again.

The probes of the officer's Taser hit her left arm and hip, said Dr. Larry Lewman of the state medical examiner's office. Owens had a history of heart disease and that was the cause of death, Lewman said Friday. He said he would do more research to determine what effect the electrical shock had on her pacemaker.

"A healthy person would not have died this way," Lewman said. Strovink said Owens had recently gotten out of the hospital and was reportedly suffering from dementia.

He said it wasn't clear how she came by the weapon. Since her husband died some years ago, Strovink said, Owens had lived alone in Big Valley Woods, a community about 20 miles southeast of Portland that bills itself as a private development for manufactured housing.

Journalists who visited Friday were ordered to leave. The two deputies, who were not identified, are on administrative leave. That would be the practice if the death was considered the result of lethal force, although Strovink said it wasn't. "But we're handling it as if we had actually shot her," he said.

That includes an investigation involving outside officers. Strovink said that when the woman grabbed her handgun off the porch railing, officers would have been justified in using their firearms, but they didn't. "They did a commendable job in using a minimal amount of force," he said.

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This was an 87 yr old women with dementia. But it only takes her to have pulled that trigger on her firearm to render someone dead. If it had been someone under the influence of alcohol instead of dementia, or a drug induced individual to make the circumstances any less harrowing for a police officer seeing a potentially live weapon pointed in their direction? They didn't know if she'd, through her psychological state, pull that trigger Or not. It's easy with hindsight to believe she could simply be talked out of waving a handgun and threatening people with it. I think sending 50,000 volts into her frail body was a little heavy-handed, but it depends how she how irrationally she was behaving at the time? They could've waited and then continued to try and talk this deranged pensioner out of firing, or dart her with medication like they would some prey - but no, they decided to take the more expedient option and zap the poor ***** with half the national grid. If you're 107 plus a dementia sufferer and still waving a potentially loaded pistol - options are pretty thin on the ground. How do we or the police know that she wasn't a crack shot in her youth??? :)

it's a very sad story, and very unfortunate for both to deal with.
I gree with male2009 there is no way for them to know her mental problem. I am sure the officers would've tried other methods to subdue the woman, but with the gun pointed at them it changes the way they can negotiate, so many shootings, so many officers have been killed in the line of duty.

I feel sorry for the Old woman's family and I feel sorry for the officer who has to deal with killing an 87 years old woman.

There's no good news here ... the cops were presented with a situation and had to deal with it. Her medical condition wasn't known to them. They had to deal with the problem of how best to bring under control quickly a person with a handgun who was threatening the safety and wellbeing of others. They did that. The sympathy in this story should really be directed at the officer who Tasered her - he's the one who'll have to live with the result of that action until his death. This story has no winners.

theres no way i could defend the police on this ... if they cant arrest an 87 year old woman without tasering her to death, then they don't need to be cops. gun or no gun, they are just taser happy freaks.

if the peeping tom hiding in the shrubbery was close enough to hit her with a taser he could have just as easily tackled her and she could be in a home getting cared for instead of in a box. Some people should never be cops, like that idiot in Oakland.

Sorry but if someone had a gun, screw a tazer im going for my gun and they would be shot, I don't care who they are. I'm going home to my daughter would be my mentality, not to mention my partners well being.

It sucks, but it's like the guy in his 70's or 80's that went on a shooting spree at the capitol. Age shouldn't mater, if someone has a gun and they are using it in a hostile or threatening manner then it's shoot to kill.

Oh you mean the cop that shot a known gang member with a large rap sheet who JUST got released from a gun charge, who was not only resisting arrest but also reaching into a pocket while resisting, that is a set up for a bad day. Not to mention it was a cop who has never been in trouble, never been late, hell never even had a complaint on him(which is rare for a cop). Not to mention that the cops were responding to a fight call that the subject was involved with.

I hope the cop gets off with probation(which they say could happen), he should have never been convicted.

Whats all this mindless banter about a gang member? This is about some coward with a badge taggin an old lady, I don't have a problem with police until they do something stupid like this or that jack *** in Oakland. Oh I thought I was reaching for my taser my ***, there is no way your gonna tell me that he didn't notice a difference in weight, grip and balance...yeah right.

The gang member thing was about the Oakland deal. Actually, i'm not a gun fan myself so I cary a taser. Honestly I couldn't feel a difference in weight between that and my friends Glock. Also the pistol grip was pretty simular. Also some department's have their officers carry their tasers on the belt by the gun instead of a leg strap like what should be standard.

Well I don't know about your friends Glock, but there is a definite difference between my Ruger and my Taser X26c which is the consumer version of the Taser X26 which is LEO. the Taser weighs 7oz and my Ruger weighs 1.7lbs. A Glock 19 empty weighs about 25oz.

that kid was on the ground and appeared to even be cuffed, if anyone watched the video,,


that cop committed negligent homicide at the very least

I do feel bad for the situations police sometimes find themselves in,, but when its several to one,,,,my sympathy diminishes

He wasn't cuffed, he was reaching in his pocket. I know anytime I had someone cuffed right pinned they couldn't risist or get to a pocket and im an amateur. LOL

If u push someone and they fall and hit thier head. Would a Dr say the cause of death was the push or hitting the head? Is thier responcibility then?

Cops are not accountable no more. Period. What makes them better than us?...Miles

he was on his stomach, was he gonna shoot them backwards? poor policework, incompetent, and negligent homicide?

this is often a tie up in murder type criminal cases,, proving the actual CAUSE of DEATH......

Daaaaaaamn ... from the tone of a lot of these posts, there ain't many people here willing to give a COP an even break ... just 'cuz someone's old doesn't mean they can't kill you. If they're irrational, the chances are even greater that they'll kill you and not even remember it later. The cop is still - no matter how much it might rankle you - INNOCENT until PROVEN guilty. Looks like that concept is lost on a lot of folks ...

Hate to say say it but I agree with Kings-Knight

Actually you can shoot someone laying on your stomach. This was justified, but to appease the rioters he was charged.

lololol,,,haaaaaaa

there were FIVE cops subduing him and there was no gun recovered,,,poor police work, shot an unarmed man instead of doing their job to secure him,,,,,