A police officer who Tasered a 92-year-old wheelchair user with dementia at a care home later posted a lightning emoji on Facebook in an apparent reference to the incident, a misconduct hearing has been told.
PC Rachel Comotto discharged the 50,000-volt weapon at Donald Burgess after he allegedly threatened care staff with a dinner knife and refused to put it down. Body-worn footage shown to the panel captured Mr Burgess screaming as the Taser barbs struck his chest.
In the hours following the incident at Park Beck Care Home in St Leonards-on-Sea, PC Comotto responded to a colleague’s Facebook exchange. Another officer had written to a colleague that “the care home is getting closer and closer”, alongside wink and laughing emojis.
PC Comotto replied: “We all know what happens in care homes”, followed by a lightning emoji. The officer then wrote: “I think you’ll be banned from going to any care homes in future. All he wanted to do was butter his bread,” accompanied by two laughing emojis.
Giving evidence at the hearing in Lewes, East Sussex, PC Comotto said she had been made “the butt” of jokes by colleagues because she had used the Taser at a vulnerable patient in a dementia care home.
Asked by her lawyer, Colin Banham, how widely the joke had spread, she said officers at the station had been “laughing and joking” at her expense, although they did not know the details of what had happened.
PC Comotto said the Facebook comment was a continuation of that joke and was not intended to mock Mr Burgess or the incident. She told the panel: “I am the target of the joke, not Mr Burgess.”
She added: “With hindsight and without context it doesn’t look good and I want to extend my apologies to the family.”
Care home incident
The incident took place in June 2022 after police received reports of an elderly man threatening staff with a knife. PC Comotto and PC Stephen Smith arrived at the home at about 1.15pm and found Mr Burgess isolated in his room, holding a dinner knife.
Body-worn footage showed PC Smith warning him that he would be “sprayed or tasered” if he did not drop it. After Mr Burgess failed to comply, the officer pepper-sprayed him in the face and later struck him with a baton.
PC Comotto then shouted “Taser, Taser” before firing the weapon. She later told the hearing she acted to prevent Mr Burgess being struck by the baton a second time, saying a Taser was a lower level of risk for an older person than another baton blow.
In footage from PC Comotto’s camera, Mr Burgess can be heard saying “I’m dying” after she asked how he was feeling. The officers handcuffed him and wheeled him outside to give him fresh air.
Mr Burgess was taken to hospital after his condition deteriorated and died three weeks later following a cardiac arrest. The hearing was told it was not alleged that the officers’ actions caused his subsequent death, which followed after he contracted Covid-19 in hospital.
PC Comotto, 37, and PC Smith, 52, face allegations of gross misconduct over the use of excessive force. The hearing continues.
