I had to find out if the 'weapon' was a fork and while I was correct to be doubtful I admit my assumptions were incorrect

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/tag/lona-varner/

In general, end-of-life circumstances are a no-win proposition when loved ones learn you’ve reached the end of your tether. Family — for very good reasons that evolution probably acculturated in our common humanity — will not want to let you go. And typically, the pain or the apathy or the emptiness that drives someone to suicide also drives him to internalize the guilt of abandoning his family, accelerating his desire to die. The law, in its absurd imposition of morality, intrudes at the tackiest moment — your death — to punish you posthumously by denying your family certain property entitlements that would be uncontested had you opted not to resist your suffering. Perhaps the only additional way to compound the law’s insult would be to add non-lethal weapons to compel you to stay alive.

And so we meet Lona Varner, an 87-year old woman from the central Oklahoma town of El Reno, bedridden and respirating with the aid of an oxygen machine. In late December, her grandson called the police in fear that Ms. Varner was in the process of suicide. But the cops discovered that she retained an acute desire to take anyone who tried to stop her into the Void with her.

Newser reports that Ms. Varner kept a knife underneath her pillow and pulled it when the police entered her home. “If you try and get the knife,” she warned, “I will stab you and kill you. I killed four Japs in World War II, and I would not bat an eye killing you.” An ugly remark at an ugly moment, to be sure.

It was followed up by compounded ugliness. One of the officers reached for a Taser and used it on Ms. Varner, burning her to the point where she would require hospitalization. According to her lawyer, the police also “treated the frail woman brutally, ripping the flesh on her arms as they grabbed her.” Police have the right not to be harmed, without question. But is there a policeman alive who can’t disarm an 87-year old bedridden woman without the use of a stun gun?

Granny was tasered appropriately. The comment about ripping the flesh from her arms as well as the majority of the article is sensationalist crap, but the details speak for themselves.

Someone had a knife (assuming it wasn't a butter knife) and threatened police who were executing the correct steps that are involved with responding to a reported issue. She told them she intended to kill an officer that interfered and of course any physical altercation is going to cause injury to someone in that state. Since she could throw a knife and was threatening harm subduing her was appropriate.

As I mentioned earlier though, the use of a taser around an oxygen device is very stupid.