Angela Pasquale says she can’t understand why police would Taser her 80-year-old mother, who wandered from her home in the middle of the night clutching a knife.

“Is there any reason, really, to ever Taser an 80-year-old in a state of confusion?” she asked. “I’m honestly baffled.”

Her mother, Iole Pasquale, suffers from dementia. After an altercation with Peel Regional Police, an officer Tasered her and she fell and broke her right hip. She is still recovering in hospital.

The incident — which took place Aug. 28, a day after Ontario said all front-line officers would be allowed to carry Tasers — is raising new questions about stun guns and police training for dealing with people who are mentally unwell.

Angela said her mother has been a widow living on her own for 12 years and was diagnosed three years ago with dementia — for which she stopped taking medication a year ago.

The elderly woman is on a waiting list for long-term-care nursing homes. In the meantime, she was managing with help from her two adult children, who would do chores and care for her, Angela said.

After receiving a call from police at 3:30 a.m., she raced to her mother’s Mississauga house. Police told her that her mother, whose first language is Italian, wouldn’t “relinquish” a knife she was holding, and an officer Tasered her.

As Pasquale’s family struggles to make sense of the incident, which is being probed by the Special Investigations Unit, experts are warning it casts a dark shadow over the province’s expansion of Tasers.

“It shows again that Taser deployment is something that must be restricted in order to protect the people of Ontario,” said Peter Rosenthal, a lawyer who has represented families of police shooting victims.

Rosenthal said the same restrictions on officers using their guns should be in place for Tasers. In Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services guidelines, officers are allowed to use their Tasers when a person is exhibiting “threatening” or “assaultive behaviour.”

However, officers are allowed to use their guns only when there is a threat of death or serious injury.

The ministry guidelines also state that officers should avoid using stun guns on frail or elderly people. A person who is Tasered loses bodily control and typically falls — raising the risk of serious injury when it comes to seniors.

David Harvey, of the Alzheimer’s Society of Ontario, said that over the past year, his organization has worked with the Ontario Police College to create better training for new officers. But that won’t reach officers already on duty.

“It’s unacceptable, in my mind. That woman could not have presented any kind of a life-threatening situation to police. Why use that kind of force to address it?”

When police approach a person with dementia who is acting aggressively, they should speak slowly and calmly, he said. The individual is likely to be confused, disoriented and frightened.

“What the police need to be doing is saying: ‘I’m here to help. I see that you’re anxious about something. Is there somebody that I can call to come and give you a hand? Is your home nearby?’” he said.

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It’s not clear what police said to Pasquale in those early morning hours. Angela said she would like to hear tapes of calls made to police, which may shed light on her mother’s condition.

In the meantime, she is left with many unanswered questions.

She said she also doesn’t understand why police used a Taser on 18-year-old Sammy Yatim after he was shot nine times on a streetcar.

“Are they going to do the same thing to a child? Because, basically, an 80-year-old woman is almost the equivalent, or can be the equivalent, of a 3-year-old child.”

“What’s next? Who do we Taser next?”

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