So a St. Louis area PD (Pine Lawn, NW of St. Louis) picked up this guy on minor traffic violations and then nearly 3 weeks later, he wakes up from a coma in the hospital.
Police said that he tried to hang himself, but oops.
He survived and corroborates an account from an EMT who pleaded with police to allow them to take the man to the emergency room:
Paramedics from Northeast Fire Protection District say that they went to the Pine Lawn jail in September on a call to check on an inmate who had abdominal pain and bleeding. He explained that he needed to go to the emergency room, but police officers and deputies working in the jail refused to listen to him.
Say his name: Bernard Scott, 44. He was being held in jail in lieu of -- wait for it ---
$360.00 bond.
The EMTs working the case appealed once more to allow Scott to go to the hospital and a cop had changed into his off-duty clothes to accompany Scott to the emergency room.
However his police supervisor said no.
Then this happens:
Only 14 minutes after the final denial, the jail had to call another ambulance, as Scott was unconscious with stiff muscles. He was agitated, aggressive from the pain he was in, and in a posture that medical experts claim is indicative of brain damage, according to the EMT report.
Police say they found Scott hanging by his neck from a shoelace that was tied to his cell door. The story is reminding many of the Texas arrest of Sandra Bland, this summer. But in the case of Scott, there are more answers, because he survived.
He says that he didn’t hang himself.
“Why would I hang myself?” he inquired. “I was in on traffic tickets.”
Scott says he can remember the first ambulance driver “wanted to take me with him, but the guy wouldn’t let me leave.”
Then another officer “told me he wasn’t going to let me out of jail unless I bonded out.”
http://www.stltoday.com/...
This is from Pine Lawn's website:
The City of Pine Lawn, Missouri is part of St. Louis County and a suburb of the City of St. Louis. It’s a vibrant, diverse community of more than 4,200 people with median household incomes of about $21,500, and median family incomes of about $23,217. According to the 2010 Census, there were 1,709 housing units at an average density of 2,822.2 per square mile. The racial make-up of the city was 2.35 percent White, 95.96 percent African-American, 0.12 percent Native American, 0.07 percent Asian, and 0.40 percent from other races. Hispanics or Latinos of any race made up 0.38 percent of the population.
So the mayor WAS Sylvester Caldwell, but he has his own criminal record to worry about:
Pine Lawn Mayor Sylvester Caldwell, 55, has been sentenced to 33 months in federal prison. He was also ordered to pay $5500 in restitution.
Prosecutors say Caldwell took money from the owner of a towing company in exchange for sending city business to that company. He’s also charged with extorting money from the owner of a convenience store. Caldwell plead not guilty.
Court documents state that the owner of the towing service was working with the FBI. This was part of an ongoing public corruption investigation of Sylvester Caldwell. The mayor met with the tow company owner at least five times for cash payments. The purpose was to remain the primary towing service for Pine Lawn...
http://fox2now.com/...
The Post-Dispatch wrote a scathing editorial saying that people need to stop laughing at this town and dissolve it:
For years Pine Lawn’s city government has been a fountain of laughs. In November 2007, for example, the city enacted an ordinance banning saggy pants. The following year, the city purchased two golf carts for Pine Lawn police officers to patrol in, the better to promote community policing in a town you can walk across in 15 minutes.
The next year the city used a federal grant to buy AR-15 semiautomatic rifles for their police officers just in case they ran into something more serious than sagging pants. Then there was the mayor who had his salary raised from $700 a month to $60,000 a year but moved his family out of town because they didn’t feel safe.
Actually, what was going on in the inner-ring north St. Louis county municipality was never very funny. It reflected the deep political and financial dysfunction typical of dozens of small county municipalities. The late Missouri Auditor Tom Schweich eviscerated Pine Lawn government in a 2011 audit. But nothing much changed...
...The city’s “public safety director” at the time (he’s now the city prosecutor and a lawyer for fire district that sent out the paramedic whom the cops ignored) appointed the same police sergeant who started the problem to investigate the incident...
...It’s time to get rid of the clowns and crooks. Citizens deserve it.
http://www.stltoday.com/...
I don't find anything here funny either. For years, many St. Louis County municipalities have been
abusing using its police as a hammer to garner revenue from its citizens, many of whom cannot really afford to pay with the threat of jail.
Or worse. I'm sure if this guy had the $360.00, he would have paid it, rather than go to jail. Now because of outrageously aggrievous actions of this police department, Mr. Scott's hospital bills will be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars alone.
It's money that Pine Lawn probably would have a very hard time paying if Mr. Scott decides to suit the municipality.
What in the blue hell is wrong with us in this country? Since when is it okay to allow due process to jump the snark? Where in the world is our sense of common, decent humanity? We treat dogs lying in the street better than we treat human beings.
First James Blake is mistaken for a credit card thief who turns out to be a high profile individual in his own right who had nothing to do with the crime either, except that he 'kind of favored' Blake in the looks department.
Then we have the same PD (NYPD in this case) arrest a woman who stopped at a light in her BMW playing loud music and enjoying it -- only to be 'arrested' later, accused of lying about owning her own damn car, given a cocktail of psychotropic drugs, stripped down naked and taken to a psyche ward.
This is not how human beings should be treated and I wouldn't have a problem if Amnesty International calls out the United States on human rights violation of its own citizens by domestic police.
Enough is enough.