Women dies after being dragged from Hospital...

[MADem]

133. Yes, there WAS a need for that.

It was a holding cell, not a hotel room. You put drunks and "druggies" on the floor so they don't fall off the bench-bunk and hurt themselves. If the person wants to use the bunk, they will get up on it when they sober up/straighten out--usually, if the doctor hasn't lied to the police about the person's fitness for confinement.

Holding cells have metal (sometimes concrete) "bunks"--there are no "beds" with fluffy pillows. Get a load of these little kids visiting a PD and seeing a "typical" holding cell: http://belagreta.blogspot.com/2012/02/cub-scouts-police-department.html

That one is fairly modern--all in one. Some have metal bunks screwed into the wall. The idea behind a holding cell is that you can clean it with a high pressure hose. There aren't any "comforts" for the people unfortunate enough to find themselves in one.

The police will often put drunks and druggies (and they were told by a DOCTOR that this woman was a druggie) on the floor so they don't roll off the bunk and hit their head. There is no "comfy place" to put someone. Bunk, floor--it's all hard and cold.

I am not making this "personal"--I am simply objecting to a series of characterizations that aren't born out by any evidence whatsoever. The police are not doctors. They were told, minutes previously, by a DOCTOR, that the woman was "fit for confinement" and a druggie looking for drugs. Within a half hour, they were putting away the defibrillator and expressing shock after an unsuccessful CPR. This is not supposition, it is made plain in the articles cited in this thread.

There seems to be an unreasonable expectation that the police should magically be possessed of powers of diagnosis exceeding that of a medical doctor, and that they should automatically believe anyone in custody who complains (like no one in custody ever screams, wails and goes limp for no good reason--or to try to get back into a medical facility to try to get drugs) --even after they've just come from a doctor's exam where the doctor told the police the person was "fine."