I came across this story and thought it was worth sharing. The drug war causes more harm than the drugs themselves.
By JG Vibes
January 10, 2013
One of the most dangerous things about the current law enforcement paradigm is that it removes decision making responsibility and empathy from the people who work in that field and spend their days with their boots on peoples necks.
Regardless of what kind of extenuating circumstance you are dealing with, “tell it to the judge” always seems to be the attitude that police officers hold.
Recently in Oklahoma this lack of empathy and responsibility has led to a horrific tragedy which resulted in the death of a pregnant woman in jail, during childbirth.
According to a local news source:
“A Pauls Valley family is forced to deal with tragedy after a 33-year-old mother dies from a medical condition while being held at the Garvin County jail. The victim in this case is Jamie Lynn Russell. Jamie also used the last name of Fisher. Her death came just hours after she went to the hospital seeking help for severe abdominal pain.
“Jamie was seeking help; she was in extreme pain,” family friend Kemper Kimberlin said.
Hospital staff reported Jamie wouldn’t cooperate, in too much pain to even lie down, so employees asked a Pauls Valley police officer to assist.
Unfortunately, when police found two prescription pills that didn’t belong to Jamie, police took her to jail for drug possession. That’s where Jamie sat for less than two hours before being found unresponsive.”
“There is nothing my staff in the jail could’ve done differently,” Garvin County sheriff Larry Rhodes said. Sheriff Rhodes points out the hospital staff authorized Jamie’s release to their custody.
“She had a medical release from the hospital stating that she was fit for incarceration,” Rhodes said. The state medical examiner’s office confirms Jamie died from a ruptured ectopic pregnancy, where an embryo implants outside the uterus.
While the hospital is incredibly negligent for bringing the police into such a delicate situation, the police also had some discretion in the matter, and really had no reason or right to be rummaging through a pregnant woman’s private property.
Of course, this is left out in all of the mainstream media commentary on this event.
I really hope the hospital and people involved with her care there get sued and lose everything. That woman went there for help and they did nothing to treat her conditions. The only thing they did was call the police, which escalated the danger to an already tramatic situation. The result was something nobody wanted, the death of a pregnant woman and her child. I believe the blame falls completely on the hospital and staff because they authorized her release to police custody.
The majority of this is on the hospital, but the officers still knew there was medical distress.
So everybody messes up and then points finger at each other. Bureaucracy at it’s finest eh?
-Thorax232
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Family Survival Course Book
This is a complicated case that has little to do with the police, explicitly–it’s about laws that require hospital staff to report suspected drug abuse and to work with police to ensure that they are arrested. It’s easy to brush off the issue and say that the laws are designed to extort and enslave the lower class, but it’s also clear that the woman needed interdiction if she was taking drugs while pregnant.
How did know the pills were’t hers? How did they know they were drugs, they didn’t have time to test them. This is a police issue, the cops caused all the problems, as usual.
Family needs to get an attorney that is the first thing, proper representation is critical. It would seem to me that the hospital is extremely negligent. She should have been held for further observation because a woman that pregnant is in a delicate state and should be handled with care. Ectopic pregnancies cannot go to term and have to be treated immediately due to the fact that internal hemorrhaging due to rupture can kill the mother and the fetal cells have to be removed. What the fuck is wrong with this hospital, I would be willing to bet she had no insurance that is why they booted her out. And you cops…….give me a fucking break 2 scripts and to jail she goes shameful.
An ectopic pregnancy is VERY serious – that is why she was in excruciating pain. I can’t say there was no way for them to miss it, but they needed to do an exam right away to find the cause, and there should have been no end of signs of what was wrong (pulse, blood pressure, probably body temperature). Hospitals have security that could have held her long enough to get basic measurements, and those would have led to the diagnosis after a short while and she would be alive.
There was no “suspected drug abuse” for the hospital to report.
She was difficult, they didn’t want to sedate her or bother with her, (oh no, not another uninsured patient!?), so they called the cops and instead of saying “no, she is too sick to go to jail”, they signed something saying she was not sick. That is malpractice.
Even if it was a severe drug induced problem, the hospital had no business releasing someone that sick (that didn’t want to be released).
Insanity, these people that are suppose to help, signed her life to death. Speechless, actually, what else can be said that has not already been said above comments.
I’m very glad for the internet, to get these stories out in the open like so, and display what this country is.
The hospital, the police, pill company’s & congress are at fault here.
Least her and her child don’t have to suffer this cruel world we live in any more, she and her unborn child are now at rest.
R.I.P. Sympathy’s goes out for her family.
she probably did not have insurance which makes her less than human in the hospitals eyes so they called their buddies at the police department to “take out the trash” many illnesses result in the patient acting delusional, violent, confused, etc. The hospital employees all know this….searching possessions? calling the cops?I wonder if they made her lay face down and cuffed her with a knee in her back? Stupid hospital stupid fn cops.
I seem to recall posting something about the high number of medical mistakes…
@Common
I can’t speak for everyone, but I haven’t forgotten that. But the two issues of police and medicine are separate. I also doubt the doctors are simply going to walk away from this mess they caused.
Beyond the hospital’s responsibility, how do the cops justify letting this woman sit in jail, suffering like that? Aren’t they responsible for her, once they take her into custody? Not everyone is faking pain and denying medical treatment is torture.
Absolutely, sue the hospital and doctors for all they’re worth. But sue the jail and the sheriff / police chief as well for negligence and wrongful death. And then fire the idiots on duty supposedly watching the cells.
Common sense/Certain, whatever name you go by, you all use this account to take away the public focus on police misconduct, even to the point of justifying what police did to poor Kelly Thomas! You all make me sick! God bless us all.
She was given a medical clearance from the hospital? How are the police supposed to go against that? What would make the police believe that the woman couldn’t go to jail if a MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL medically cleared her?
Some of you guys hate cops so much that you will try to blame law enforcement for everything. Take off the blinders.
She was in hospital and went there voluntarily as she was in huge amounts of pain! She was uncooperative due to the pain and clearly very ill! The police had the option of letting her stay or if they had to take her they could and should have kept a very close eye on her condition. Instead they bang her up and don’t give her any attention until it is too late. If the police hadn’t have taken her she would probably be alive. Period!
I do blame both the hospital and the police in this tragic case but the fact is if they had not forcibly taken her from the hospital and then detained her and in doing do so preventing her from receiving any medical attention she would be alive. They only discovered her after I suspect they thought, ‘well she has shut up now and must be cooperating’. What a shame! God bless us
Underoath: The point is that the cops felt they had to jail someone because of two pills found on her. Why? Why could they not just cite her? Bumping the statistics? Working for Big Pharma? The whole thing was handled wrong – both by the medics and the cops.
Oh, and this:
LEO = terrorist tax collector
Peace Officer = hero
Felix Homogratus, Dimitri Chavkerov Rules! You pay us we post good about us!!