Busy Martha

Martha who was now aware that the shadow she saw was of the employee of the Boys and Girls Club, Tanner. She was relieved as she thought there was nothing to worry. Indeed there wasn’t but then Tanner took the situation to another level entirely. She was still picking up the dandelions. She wasn’t even aware that there were two police officers along with the chief of Chatsworth Police Department. Things were about to take a bad turn now.

On The Scene

Spotting the 87-year-old wasn’t a big task to do. She seemed calm and was busy collecting dandelions. Honestly, the police saw nothing bad in the situation. The police officers have an eye to see the bad situation from distance, this wasn’t one of them. But then orders are orders. They did what they felt right when they saw the knife in her hand.

Verbal Warning

The two officers had no intentions of hurting Martha in any way. They had no guns pointed towards her as they were just looking for a verbal warning. Remember, she had a problem with hearing. When police officers issued the verbal warning Martha didn’t seem to understand what they were trying to say. So, she just kept cutting.

One More Time

Martha didn’t get what the officers were trying to say to her. She didn’t pay much attention. She was busy cutting the dandelions. The officers didn’t know that she wasn’t able to hear them. They thought she was ignoring the police warning which was more than enough to raise the suspicion. They again shouted the verbal warning and again there was the same response. 

Mimic The Situation

The officers then tossed their own pocket knife on the ground. They did the same again, but Martha wasn’t getting anything.  It seemed like a game of dumb charades that was literally going very bad at that moment. Martha couldn’t understand anything. For a moment, she stared at the police officers to see what was going on with them, but then for her, there was nothing to understand. They were trying to tell her that she should drop the knife which was in her hand. But then, they pulled out their stun guns.

From The Police

“We kept telling her to drop the knife. The female would look at us. Her demeanor was calm even seeing us with our [stun] guns out,” one of the police officers recalled the incident. What would you do if a police officer points a gun even if it’s a stun gun? Obviously, you might get scared about it, right? But Martha was calm. In her mind, she had done nothing wrong. Indeed she didn’t. What happened next with her was a simple case of misunderstandings that could happen with anybody.