​​Body-camera footage shows 75-year-old tased without warning by police officer

Body-camera footage of a 75-year-old man who was tased by a former Colorado police officer was released on Thursday.

In the footage, officers from the Idaho Springs Police Department knocked on Michael Clark’s door. 

Clark opened the door asking, “What do you want?”

The footage shows the officers demanding him to put a swordlike item down, according to The Washington Post. He subsequently puts the weapon on a shelf, before one of the officers tell Clark to get on the ground. 

“No,” Clark said. “They hit that wall so hard, I thought they were going to come through the wall,” apparently referring to an incident between him and his neighbors, the Post reported.

Officer Nicholas Hanning reportedly then tased Clark, and he dropped to the ground. The officers grabbed Clark’s legs and dragged him into the hallway where he was then handcuffed. According to The Associated Press, Hanning told Clark he had been accused of punching a neighbor in the face, though Clark denied the accusation.

Clark’s lawyer, Sarah Schielke, who distributed the body-camera footage after it was released on Thursday, said that he suffered a burst appendix, a stroke and hearing complications, according to the AP. 

According to the Post, Schielke said in a statement on Thursday that Clark’s health is “declining” and that her client plans to file a lawsuit “very soon.”

The Post noted that Hanning was fired by the department on July 15 and faces charges of third-degree assault. A lawyer for the former police officer did not respond to the Post’s request for comment on Thursday.

In a statement on July 8, Idaho Springs Police Chief Nathan Buseck said that the department “took decisive action to address this incident” and said the incident was not reflective of the department as a whole.

“The Idaho Springs Police Department is a proud organization that holds itself accountable and holds all employees accountable for their actions. Our agency took decisive action to address this incident which included a thorough internal investigation along with immediately requesting an outside agency perform a criminal investigation,” Buseck said. 

“This isolated incident is not reflective of the great work being done by the men and  women of our agency who continue to work diligently alongside our citizens to prevent crime and protect our community,” he continued. 

The Hill has reached out to Clark’s and Hanning’s lawyers for comment.