95-year-old Illinois man, John Warna, dies after police shoot him with bean bag rounds: autopsy
A confrontation between Park Forest Police Department and 95-year-old resident of a Park Forest senior living community, John Warna, ended in death for the elderly man, according to a Chicago Tribune report.
On Friday, police officers were called to the assisted living home to help employees of a private ambulance company involuntarily transfer Warna to a clinic for medical treatment.
It is reported that Warna refused to go and got combative, allegedly threatened the facility’s staff and paramedics with a metal cane and a 2-foot shoehorn.
Police demanded that he drop the cane and shoehorn, but he did not comply and then picked up a “12-inch butcher type kitchen knife.”
Police told Warna to surrender and listen to their instructions. But when he refused, police stunned him with a Taser and shot him with bean-bag rounds.
Warna was reported conscious as he was taken into custody and transferred to the hospital where he died soon after.
The Chicago Tribune reports that the autopsy revealed that the cause of death of John Warna was hemoperitoneum – bleeding in the stomach area from blunt force trauma of the abdomen after he was shot with a bean bag gun.
RT.com reports that bean-bag rounds consist of a fabric filled with lead shot. The rounds can be fired from a regular shotgun, and are designed to deliver a blow that will leave the victim temporarily immobile. But when the rounds hit the chest, they can sometimes break the ribs and force the ribs into the heart. A shot to the head can cause a broken nose, neck, larynx or skull. And a shot to the abdominal area can cause internal bleeding.
Bean-bag rounds can be especially dangerous when fired at close proximity, and present a serious risk of death or injury when fired from less than 10 feet away. It is unclear how far police were from the 95-year-old before shooting him in the abdomen.
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