US ER Docs Say Cops Use Excessive Force

Publius2008

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Wednesday December 24, 2008 · 9:05 AM PST

2008/12/24 · 09:05

More evidence that Bush's credo "Bringing The Third World To Your Back Door" is becoming our reality. Reuters reports that in a survey of American ER docs conducted by the Emergency Medical Journal and published in its January, 2009 edition, "virtually all said they believed that law enforcement officers use excessive force to arrest and detain suspects."

99.8 percent suspected excessive force is used and nearly the same amount reported they had managed cases where they believed or the patient informed them excessive force was used by police. 65% believed they had treated two or more cases of suspected excessive force per year among their patients.

It's worse at typically urban public teaching hospitals. There, ER docs were four times more likely to report suspected use of excessive force.

Most emergency physicians (71.2 percent) admitted that they did not report cases of suspected use of excessive force by law enforcement officers.

96.5 percent reported that they had no, and or did not know of, policies on reporting their suspicions and 93.7 percent said they had received no education or training in dealing with these situations.

69.5 percent of the ER docs believed it was within their scope of practice to refer cases of suspected excessive force for investigation and 47.9 percent felt that ER docs should be legally required to report cases of suspected excessive force.

http://news.yahoo.com/...

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