A new police bodycam shows two cops viciously assaulting and pepper-spraying a woman’s genitalia while she lay nude on a road during a psychotic episode.
It coincides with the woman’s identify being revealed for the first time.
The video of NSW Police officers Senior Constable Nathan Black and Constable Timothy John Trautsch abusing their 48-year-old relative Jodi Knott appalled Nichole Allen and Sharee Castagna.
After Ms. Knott passed away from cancer eighteen months after the heinous 2023 attack, the couple battled tenaciously to have the video made public.
They hope that improved police training for handling situations involving acute mental illness will be their cousin’s legacy.
When the two initially saw the bodycam film, Ms. Allen started crying.
Ms. Castagna told ABC’s Four Corners, “They didn’t care that there were cameras around or that their bodycam footage was on. That says to me that there is a significant cultural issue within the police… that this type of behavior is OK.”
Two police officers viciously attacked Jodi Knott.
Police body-worn cameras recorded the assault.During the vicious assault, Constable Timothy John Trautsch was seen chuckling.
“She had nothing on her,” Ms. Allen continued. She is vulnerable because she was nude.
“What will she do to them?” That’s two big guys showing up like that. They decided to constantly abuse her and assault her at every turn. She won’t do anything. They just kept hitting her when she was on the ground. It’s terrible.
When plain-clothed officers Black and Trautsch were dispatched to an industrial area at Emu Plains in January 2023 to perform a welfare check, they discovered Ms. Knott crouching under a tree, naked.
Black approached her after donning blue medical gloves.
In the video, he said, “It’s not about being scared.”
“It’s about being afraid of you,” yelled Ms. Knott.
“Go away; I’m afraid of you people.”I can’t be physically defeated by you. F*** off.
The video appalled Jodi Knott’s relatives Sharee Castagna and Nichole Allen.
The policeman sprayed Jodi Knott with all of his pepper spray bottles.
After being denied access to medication, Jodi Knott became confused.
As Ms. Knott lay on the road, the bodycam captured Black and Trautsch stomping on her.
Her scrapes were doused with black pepper.
In footage captured by Black’s bodycam, one officer can be heard stating, “Get it in her eyes, get it in her eyes.” Ms. Knott was also sprayed in the face at close range, a risky procedure that is prohibited due to the possibility of eye injury.
After emptying their pepper spray canisters, the officers were heard discussing other ways to brutalize Ms. Knott. “We need a taser,” Black remarked. “God, please.” Ms. Knott said, “I’m strong, God, but not without you,” as Trautsch laughed.
“Hey, does the car have a long baton?”” “Yeah, that’ll settle her down,” Trautsch says in response to Black’s question.
To perform a welfare check, the police were sent to an Emu Plains street.
In July 2025, Constable Timothy John Trautsch departs from court.
Before being imprisoned in July of last year, both cops acknowledged using unlawful force.
The attack took place approximately 300 meters from the Amber Laurel Correctional Center, where 48-year-old Ms. Knott had been released earlier that day.
She ended up in a dead end after becoming lost on her way to the Emu Plains rail station.
The couple’s brutality escalated during the 18-minute attack on Jodi, according to video that was previously shown during their sentencing hearing at Penrith District Court in July of last year.According to court records, Ms. Knott, who had schizophrenia, was given an antipsychotic but was not taking it at the time.
Black severely scraped Ms. Knott’s back after kicking her in the head and dragging her by the hair along the bitumen.
“You are fed—I mean fed—if you touch me.” She sat naked on a grassy sidewalk and said to the two officers, “They’re up there watching. You don’t know about the aliens, do you?”
Nathan Black, a senior constable, departs court before going to jail.
The vicious assault was also filmed on camera by a nearby company.
Two days prior, Jodi attempted to fill a prescription, but the pharmacy phoned the police when she began yelling, which led to the incident that put her in jail.
She was pepper sprayed and taken into custody after a fight when the police arrived.
Black entered a guilty plea to three charges of common assault, assault causing actual bodily harm, and using a restricted weapon without a permit.
After emailing brief excerpts of the body-worn video to another police officer, he also admitted to two charges of purposefully releasing protected material.
“She was fed, the whole body-worn is so good, shows her being fed,” he wrote in a message describing how the two had sprayed the woman with two cans of pepper spray. A complaint is being filed by nurses. Black added, “We caved her, but she had a hold of the cuffs, and we had no other options, so [a senior officer] is investigating.”
Additionally, Black emailed the colleague two bodycam clips from the encounter. Sending police body-worn footage was illegal since it is regarded as protected information.
Trautsch entered a guilty plea to three charges of common assault, one count of assault resulting in actual bodily harm, and one count of employing a restricted weapon without a permit.
The NSW Police Force no longer employs either of these officers.
When the incident was initially made public, NSW Police Deputy Commissioner Dave Hudson stated that it was among the worst instances of wrongdoing he had witnessed in his more than 40 years as a police officer.
Judge Graham Turnbull of the NSW District Court described the experience as a “deliberate and ongoing attack” in August of last year.
Judge Turnbull stated, “It’s definitely a matter that sits quite clearly as a most egregious breach of the law.”
The use of pepper spray, he continued, was “clearly calculated.”
“The accused showed complete and utter contempt for the victim… to inflict the maximum amount of pain and discomfort while pretending to try and free some handcuffs from her hand,” he said. They apparently didn’t give a damn.
Trautsch’s manner “unfortunately is consistent with some evident wry humor on his part,” Judge Turnbull continued.
Black received a minimum sentence of three years and three months and a maximum sentence of five years and nine months.
Trautsch was given a minimum sentence of three years and a maximum sentence of five years and nine months.
Three months after being abused, Ms. Knott had another run-in with the law when police were called to her Moorebank residence due to allegations that she was pacing her driveway while brandishing a kitchen knife.
When the police arrived, they tasered her twice and took her into custody.
A PACER nurse, a trained mental health clinician, was not brought to any of these call-outs by the police.
This Monday at 8:30 p.m., ABC’s Four Corners will broadcast the tale.
