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There was one "officer" and she was a woman. Tasers are not toys. Police are supposed to apprehend, not to act as judge, jury and in the case of people who have died after being tasered by the police, exectutioner.
The elderly woman trespassed, evidently in violation of a restraining order. She also did in fact resist arrest and, in the officer's words, "got rude and ugly". That could have been obscene language, shoving. Those facts and a further description are not referred to in the articles I saw.
But here is where you are wrong about the law. The only issues before the jury, in this criminal prosecution case, were (1) did she trespass, as that term is defined in statutory and case law, and (2) did she resist arrest, also as that term is defined in statutory and case law. The fact that the jury found her guilty of those two charges is ENTIRELY, LEGALLY separate from whether the officer used unnecessary force in the form of a taser. Most of the times when police officers are charged with excessive use of force, the target of the force HAS in fact broken some law. But in our country, at least before Bush and his Patriot Act, the job of the police is to apprehend, and they are to leave it to the courts to mete out punishment. In this case, the punishment was a choice of fine or jail time. BUT NOWHERE IN OUR JUDICIAL SYSTEM, OR UNDER US JURISDICTION, EXCEPT IN ABU GRHAIB, OR GUANTANAMO, is deliberate infliction of physical pain authorized, short of the death penalty, and even then, with lethal injections, the purpose is to kill, not to torture. Maybe you'd be happier working in Guantanamo?
That fact that the officer used unnecessary force was admitted to by the police dept. when it reprimanded her and had her take more training. Here and in the other thread you linked to above, you keep whining, to use your term, that if the officer didn't have a taser (or "toy", as you refer to this torturous, potentially lethal weapon) available, she would have pulled a gun and started firing away, in the middle of the nursing home. Clearly that use of deadly force, would NEVER have been availalble to the officer.
It is extremely unfortunate that police, fire and other emergency rescue people do not receive special training in dealing with the mentally ill, mentally retarded, and senile members of our society. In that some legislatures are making the mere aiming of a taser weapon AT a police officer a justification for that officer to respond with shoot-to-kill actions, everyone (except you, evidently) now knows that tasers are lethal weapons, moreso depending upon the physical condition of the target. Police officers, both men AND WOMEN, should be trained in martial arts and in good enough physical condition to take down and handcuff physically violent, but unarmed individuals.
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