A 36-year-old former Colorado police officer whose reckless discharge of his stun gun sent a 75-year-old man to the hospital—where he remains seven months later—has taken a plea bargain. Officer Nicholas Hanning, who was fired by the Idaho Springs Police Department in July, responded to a complaint at the apartment of Michael Clark on May 30 after a woman in his complex complained the elderly man had punched her. According to Hanning’s body-camera footage, he fired the taser at Clark without warning when the elderly man opened the door. Hanning was arrested in July and on Thursday accepted a plea bargain, pleading guilty to misdemeanor third-degree assault; he escaped the felony assault of an at-risk person charge he was booked under.
Clark told local media the day after the incident that he had no idea who the woman who accused him of the assault was and that the police had automatically assumed he was guilty. A day later, he suffered seizures and a stroke and remains hospitalized, according to his family, who showed video of the now-disabled Clark objecting to the plea deal from his hospital bed. The family has filed a motion to have the district attorney who arranged the plea deal removed and replaced by a special prosecutor. The next hearing is Jan. 6.
