...can be something you bring onto yourself, something with which you have to live the rest of your life, and something that you can never get over because of the guilt you will feel for having done what it was that put you into your own living hell.
So it will probably be for the two police officers who ignored the cries and pleas of the woman they arrested, who while being arrested told them she was pregnant and she was bleeding from her vagina. The officers chose not to listen. Sure they heard her, they heard her time and time again as she begged them to help her, but they were intent on arresting her and nothing else. They arrested her, put her in jail, and the next day she had a miscarriage.
I have been in law enforcement for over 27 years. I have heard a lot of bull from prisoners about why I should not arrest them, about why I should feel sorry for them, about how they really are good people and not bad criminals - I have just about heard it all. You grow kind of callous to all the whining that you hear and you tend to lump it all together in one big stinking pile of bull manure (BS). Yet, there have been times in my career when I have stopped to listen more intently, this especially when a prisoner has told me they are injured or ill. I have on occasion called for para-medics to come to examine patients, and have brought a few to the doctor's office and the hospital ER. Now I am not talking about ones that were injured during the arrest where it was obvious that they required medical assistance, I am talking about the ones I figured were full of bull manure, but well maybe, just maybe, they needed a doctor. As it turned out, in most cases they were full of fertilizer and that was all, but in a good deal of them, they did need medical care. Sometimes you have to take the time to listen, the time to stop and bring yourself out of your protective cocoon (for that is what which we in law enforcement shield ourselves from the manure), and we have to think - hey maybe this person is not full of it.
A call like that is a judgment call; and as logic would have it, it requires one using one's judgment in a thought out manner. To me, it seems obvious, that the police officers who arrested this woman used no to very little thinking while arresting her as she complained of her bleeding and being pregnant. I heard the tape. I sure seems to me they just thought it all a story so that they would pity the woman, but that is just my guess. It also sure sounds as if the officers did not want to be bothered with this woman’s problems, and that is not as much of a guess since one of the officers basically said just that according to the article: Woman: Cops Ignored Pleas for Help at Arrest, Baby Died Next Day @ http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,249044,00.html. As a matter of fact, according to the article, woman told the officers she was bleeding, pregnant, and needed to go to a hospital not only once or twice but nine times, and then after the ninth time, one of the officers replied with these words: "How is that my problem?" At the very least, the officer should have, in my opinion, had medical help brought into the police station or jail to examine the woman for her complaints. I don't know whether or not that happened, but I do not believe it did, as Fox New TV reported that only after the woman passed a blood clot, several hours later in jail, was she then brought for medical help. One at a medical facility, she had a miscarriage, the baby living one minute after that. That will, I think, cost her and her partner dearly; it may even lead to some sort of homicide charges - after all the baby was born alive.
I think the officers will soon come to learn just how it was, is and will remain their problem for the rest of their lives. No matter how much they spin it, the cocoon will not be enough protection for them from the hell they have placed themselves into because of what happened to this woman and her child. This is a guilt trip that probably will last with them until the grave if either has any conscience at all. Yet the guilt trip will only be a part of the hell for them. They may well loose their jobs, and should loose their jobs as I see it, that is if the allegations are upheld. They may also wind up in jail if there is a criminal offense here, and there may well be various charges that the DA can drop on them, possibly to include manslaughter or negilgent homicide. There could be a jail sentence for each of them as a result. They will also likely be the target of a civil suit. Most of all though will be the guilt trip that these officers will face just for staying wrapped in their protective cocoon, using that 'them against us kind of mentality' with those whom they were quite possibly sworn to protect, or at least had a moral obligation to protect. It is all a crying shame, one that was quite possibly avoidable, and hopefully other officers will learn from this experience accordingly, and things like it will be prevented in the future.
All the best,
Glenn B
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