ACT police 'exceedingly heavy-handed' in Tasering disabled Aboriginal woman, magistrate says

A magistrate has sharply criticised ACT police officers who used a Taser on an Aboriginal woman with an intellectual disability during a routine arrest in Canberra, describing their conduct as "exceedingly heavy-handed".

The woman, identified only as Emma at her lawyer's request to protect her privacy, was arrested at a bus stop in January after police received reports she was carrying a knife. Officers found only two pairs of scissors, one of them broken, in a nearby backpack.

The ACT magistrates court heard in September that Emma pleaded with officers not to use the stun gun and told them she was unarmed. Body-worn camera footage played in court showed her raising her hands immediately when officers arrived and pointed a Taser towards her.

When she pushed back against an officer trying to handcuff her, she was pulled to the ground. While two officers held her down, another pressed a Taser against her back and activated it in what is known as "drive stun" mode. Seven officers were present. The court also heard police threatened to use OC spray after Emma appeared to self-harm by deliberately striking her head against a police van.

Special magistrate Sean Richter, a former South Australian police officer, said he found the officers' conduct "incredibly" heavy-handed and agreed they knew who Emma was and understood her vulnerabilities before arresting her. "I sometimes wonder when we lost the ability to speak to people," he said. "She's a woman that was putting up no resistance. She's sitting on the bench with her arms in the air."

Richter said Emma suffered a traumatic brain injury in a motor vehicle accident when she was 12. He said the ACT civil and administrative tribunal had described her as having a mental impairment and a neurocognitive disorder, and that she had been placed on a psychiatric treatment order. "It's blatantly apparent to anyone that deals with this woman that she has a significant cognitive disorder and should be treated as such," he said. "I find it amazing that in this day and age the police reacted in the way that they did."

Police charged Emma with multiple offences over the incident, but prosecutors withdrew all except possessing a knife without reasonable excuse, a charge relating to the scissors in her bag. She pleaded guilty and was convicted. She also appeared before Richter on unrelated matters. A transcript of the September hearing was released to Guardian Australia in October.

In a statement, ACT policing said it noted Richter's comments but would not comment further because an associated civil claim is under way. That claim, filed in July by Emma's lawyer, Michael Lalor, accuses one officer of misfeasance in public office. It alleges a series of misleading statements or omissions in police evidence led to more serious charges being laid and to Emma spending 28 days in custody before bail was granted, once her lawyers viewed the body-worn footage.

The statement of claim says police wrongly asserted Emma ignored commands, "abruptly" bent towards her bag, attempted to strike an officer in the face multiple times and was Tasered because she engaged in a "high level of violence". It also alleges police misrepresented the witness who reported seeing a woman with a knife, saying he "immediately feared for his safety and departed swiftly" while omitting that the man and his partner were inside a moving vehicle with the doors locked. The witness told police: "I wasn't particularly scared, I was in a car with the doors locked, so I knew she couldn't really stab me." Lalor is also alleging breaches of the Human Rights Act and seeking exemplary damages for assault and battery. Police have not yet been required to file a defence.

The case adds to mounting scrutiny of ACT police use of force, particularly against Aboriginal people. In August, the commonwealth and ACT ombudsman criticised the force for failing to clearly define "racial profiling" after officers drew guns on an Indigenous teenager they mistook for a suspect in an aggravated burglary. In June last year, the ombudsman found that in about a third of cases reviewed, unprofessional behaviour such as impatience, aggression and foul language appeared to unnecessarily escalate situations. That investigation recommended police better equip officers to understand mental illness, but police did not accept the recommendation.