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Colorado: Family ‘Disgusted’ After Cop Who Tasered, Beat Innocent Elderly Grandpa Gets Sweetheart Deal (Video)

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Published on: December 7, 2021

Idaho Springs, CO — On May 30, 75-year-old Michael Clark had harmed no one, broken no law, and was asleep in his home when Idaho Springs cops barged in through his front door and attacked him without warning. For months, Clark and his family have been demanding justice and they thought they would see it after officer Nicholas Hanning was fired and charged. However, that justice appears to be dwindling.

This week, according to an email sent from the Clear Creek District Attorney’s Office to Clark’s attorney, Hanning is being offered a plea deal that will reduce his charge of third degree assault on an at-risk adult, which is a class 6 felony, to a misdemeanor — drastically reducing the chances of any time in jail.

“It just is disgusting, disgusting. That’s the only word I can come up with. It’s heartbreaking, disgusting, and infuriating,” Cynthia Flageolle, Clark’s daughter told CBS4.

“(Hanning) is in a position that he’s supposed to serve and protect, and he did no serving or protecting in this case,” Flageolle said.

After the attack, Clark suffered a stroke, was hospitalized, and has been recovering ever since. Unfortunately, he’s left with permanent brain damage and his recovery is not happening as the family would like.

Before the attack, Clark had been well enough to live on his own. Now, however, he resides in a nursing home due to the injuries and heart problems suffered during the attack, according to his attorney Sarah Schielke.

After releasing the video in May, Schielke released the following statement condemning the actions of the officers that night and noting how this abuse is so horrific that once viewed, it cannot be “unseen.”

“We knew it was going to be bad from the affidavit for Officer Hanning’s arrest. But that affidavit, it turns out, did no justice to the level of injustice seen on these videos. They need to be seen to be believed. Finally being able to view the videos has been vindicating for this family on some level, since they confirm all that Mr. Clark has said, but, seeing the horrors that they contain, after fighting for so long to get them, has been traumatic in its own right. The tragic, needless abuse of this man in his own home cannot be unseen. There have been a lot of tears and a lot of anger over these past few days as the family grieves and attempts to process all the perverse abuses of power seen on these videos.”

According to police, they were at Clark’s residence that night, claiming a woman reported that he punched her. As Clark was not charged with a crime, we can presume the claim held no merit.

When Clark heard the officers — who did not announce themselves as police — banging at his door that night, he assumed the worst and grabbed a saw-toothed sword to answer the door. As Clark answered the door, his assumptions came to fruition and he was immediately attacked by Hanning.

Once Clark realized they were police officers, he put the sword down and began to explain to the officers what had happened. However, the officers wanted nothing to do with Clark’s explanation and without justification or warning, Hanning tasered the elderly man in his stomach.

The taser caused Clark to fall backward and he immediately fell unconscious. Despite the fact that Clark was lying motionless and unconscious on the ground, Hanning continued the assault, kneeling on the elderly man’s neck for several moments before handcuffing him.

The taser strike and assault caused Clark to have a stroke and he was hospitalized for weeks, according to Schielke.

Clark says that despite the humiliating nature of the video, he wanted it released to show what two bad cops look like.

As for these bad cops, Hanning was fired from the department on July 16 and charged, and the other officer in the video, Ellie Summers, who let the abuse and assault of an elderly man go unchecked, remains on the Idaho Springs Police Department.

Below is a statement from Clark that is utterly heartbreaking:

“How I was brutally attacked, and almost murdered… Has really affected me in a lot of
ways. The memory of how I was treated, and not just how I was treated by the police
force, but also then after that by the district attorney, like I was the aggressor, that has
severely affected me.

Some people may wonder why I would be so set on the public
release of these videos, when releasing them means that everyone I know is going to
see me in my skivvies, stripped of my dignity, and assaulted in my own home.
But what the world will see in these videos is not me at my worst, but a police
department at their worst. I am a patriot. I love my country.

There are a number of good people out there, of good police officers. These are not them. People like this should not be police. What they took from me that day, I can’t put into words. I’m going to do whatever it takes with what little time I have left to stop this from happening to anyone else ever again.”

As for Hanning, he will likely avoid jail altogether as Clark spends his golden years in a hospital bed, unable to leave the hospital.

“(Hanning) could get up to two years and I think a $5,000 fine,” Flageolle said. “My dad’s medical bill for just a room and board, not the surgery, not the doctors, was $276,000.”

Article posted with permission from Matt Agorist

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