He was 95, a World War II veteran who’d served in Burma, a guy feisty in mind but old in body, a man just a few weeks shy of his 96th birthday when he died
His friends said he wasn’t steady on his feet, and should have been in a wheelchair. They said he was so frail that you could push him over with your left hand.
“He was serious about his cards, I can tell you that,” said one of his closest friends, Patrick Browne.
“I miss him,” said Millie Cameron, another of the seniors at the Blakey senior center in south suburban Glenwood where the old guy was a fixture. “I enjoyed his company. He used to come over and play cards every other Saturday. A good man.”
Many of you know what happened to the old guy. His name? John Wrana.
He was killed July 27 not by some robber but by the Park Forest police. First they shot him with a Taser, then they shot him in the stomach with a beanbag round from a shotgun. He bled to death from the inside.
Wrana had refused medical treatment at the Victory Centre assisted living facility in Park Forest where he’d been living recently. The paramedics were called, and then Park Forest police.
Police said in a statement that Wrana threatened police and staff with a 2-foot-long shoehorn, and with a butcher knife.
They probably could have pushed him over with a spaghetti mop, or thrown a jacket over his head, or just closed the door and let him cool off. But Park Forest police decided to show the 95-year-old man who was boss.
So they used a Taser, and then they shot him.
Friends of 95-year-old man killed by police want answers, too – Chicago Tribune
h/t to John B M.D.
Once in uniform a bully becomes a dangerous thing.
The police are out of control. Our grandson was legally bow hunting.this wek. While in a tree stand he heard a gun being fired but thought nothing of it, figuring it was possibly a nail gun. He came out of the woods before dark to find his truck surrounded by a 10 person swat team. He stopped and wisely called out to them. They ran towards him guns drawn ordering him to the ground. This is in a small very affluent Maine town. What have we become? Does it take a 10 man swat team to respond to a couple of shots in the woods of Maine? .
Welcome to the police state.
not a bad way to go at 95
Let Me Die A Youngman’s Death by Roger McGough; google this for a comment appropriate for poetry day
Omno, you wretch. Mr Wrana could have lived to 112, like the “world’s oldest man” that died recently (not by being brutalised by “public servants”, either). He could have died peacefully in his sleep. No, it came at the hands of thugs hiding behind badges and regulations and on the public payroll. Sure, he could also have died slowly and painfully like many I saw when I worked in aged care. So could you, and at any time, since your life and the quality of it rests in God’s hands.
he could’ve died forgotten – he died a public hero instead. Perhaps police brutality will become a thing of the past because of him.
Number of living years vastly overestimated in their importance.
I agree with you.
Until you are 95.
Money is the common thread between looney alarmists and police thugs. A continuous salary should be based on a kpi like zero killing or injury of innocent and harmless people. Start with the governor, then the mayor, and the rest of those “public servants”.
We can be sheep waiting to be slaughtered or we can demand accountability. Democracy is only any good if you sack the poor performers and halt funding to sociopathic lefties.
“Wrana had refused medical treatment at the Victory Centre assisted living facility in Park Forest where he’d been living recently.”
Imagine how difficult it will be to refuse treatment when it is government mandated.