If You Have Nothing To Hide, Don't Have A Stroke In The State Of Florida!

[Logical]

Allen Daniel Hicks Sr., 51, was found stopped in his car on the side of Interstate 275 by a sheriff's deputy and a Florida Highway Patrol trooper the morning of May 11, 2012. Passers-by had called 911 after they saw Hicks' Chevy Cavalier swerving west into a guardrail, records of the incident show.

Speaking incoherently and unable to move his left arm, Hicks was arrested on a charge of obstructing a law enforcement officer when he did not respond to commands to exit his car. Just after noon, he was booked into the Orient Road Jail.

Hicks did not receive a medical screening, but was put in a cell where he lay facedown on the floor or tried to crawl using the one working side of his body. On the night of May 12, soaked in his own urine, his brain choked of blood, he was at last taken to Tampa General Hospital and diagnosed with an ischemic stroke. He slipped into a coma and died within three months.

Hicks' family just received a $1 million settlement from the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office and the private company that provides medical service for the jail's inmates. The case touches on a couple of ongoing problems in law enforcement, including neglect, abuse, and inadequate medical treatment in local jails, and poor training for police in recognizing and accomodating medical conditions like stroke and diabetic shock.

Hicks' family just received a $1 million settlement from the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office and the private company that provides medical service for the jail's inmates. The case touches on a couple of ongoing problems in law enforcement, including neglect, abuse, and inadequate medical treatment in local jails, and poor training for police in recognizing and accomodating medical conditions like stroke and diabetic shock.

More at : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/15/if-you-have-nothing-to-hi_n_3600564.html

Wow, I bet both these idiot cops kept their jobs. What happened to officers trying to help people and not assuming they are criminals?

[Hoyt]

1. Unbelievable. I know it's true, but Jeebus.

[Logical]

2. People should be in jail over this. n-t

[leftyohiolib]

3. i read some where (here i think ) that the police dont want smart people to be cops

they say smart people will be bored with the job.

[Hestia]

5. Maybe, but how about hiring some people with a soul - at the very least a conscious

[surrealAmerican]

4. One would also hope that this would cost the ...

... "private company that provides medical service for the jail's inmates" their contract. Just what are they doing with the county's money if they let people die in lock up?

[Neoma]

6. Flordia again?

*sigh*

[davidpdx]

7. That's the problem when they assume the person is DUI

My father had many strokes (and ended up dying of one). Thankfully he never had one while driving. Even with the loss of function in his right leg and hand, and slurred speech he continued to drive. I believe he also wore a Medic Alert bracelet as well. Heart attacks and strokes are high among men.

They lacked the proper policy to actually check whether the person was drunk or had some other medical condition.

[MADem]

8. Tangential -- Court OKs Barring High IQs for Cops

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=95836#.UedVu43VCSo

A man whose bid to become a police officer was rejected after he scored too high on an intelligence test has lost an appeal in his federal lawsuit against the city.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York upheld a lower court’s decision that the city did not discriminate against Robert Jordan because the same standards were applied to everyone who took the test.

“This kind of puts an official face on discrimination in America against people of a certain class,” Jordan said today from his Waterford home. “I maintain you have no more control over your basic intelligence than your eye color or your gender or anything else.”

[bluestate10]

16. POlice should be forced by their departments to rule out the possibility that an

immobile person is not having a medical emergency before moving on to items like DUI. There is no reason why a professionally trained cop shouldn't be able to rule out medical emergency and stay safe at the same time. Police departments are so in love with testosterone driven recruits instead of being that way about the more cerebral, humane recruits - the latter make better police officers, IMO.

[MADem]

21. I agree--I think they need another ten or 15 points of IQ AND a heaping helping of compassion. nt

[Enthusiast]

9. This is just sickening.

This sort of thing is all too common.

[RandiFan1290]

10. Time to stop acting like it only happens in certain states

Police are abusing people all over the country and they have to be stopped.

Tragic video shows mentally disturbed prisoner dying in jail after spending 51 hours lying naked and immobile on cell floor

[KG]

11. esp if you're black.

[Logical]

12. So true! n-t

[el_bryanto]

13. Looks like some of the contractors at the facility were denied security clearance

and so lost their jobs there. The cops had to go through training to recognize stroke symptoms.

Bryant

[Logical]

14. But the cops still have jobs. No punishment. n-t

[Liberal_in_LA]

20. lawsuits aren't done. One names one of the cops.

[onethatcares]

15. 36 hours he lay there

and the deputies didn't think that strange, the privatized medical staff didn't care either.

The sheriff did not really discipline the guards.

Check out the story in the TampaBayTimes. You'll have to use their site search though..

[Ruby the Liberal]

17. SMILE test (how is LEO *not* trained on this??)

1. Ask them to smile (is one side drooping)

2. Raise their arms

3. Speak a simple phrase/sentence like Cows come home or Chicken Soup (slurring)

Between this and diabetic shock, its a wonder these cop cowboys aren't bankrupting their communities...

[Liberal_in_LA]

18. this story makes me so angry

[Liberal_in_LA]

19. Sheriff's Deputy Justin Lunsford, Highway Patrol Trooper Richard Guzman

heriff's Deputy Justin Lunsford arrived, along with Highway Patrol Trooper Richard Guzman and a Hillsborough Fire Rescue engine. Hicks' car was stopped against the guardrail in the left emergency lane and his driver's side mirror was broken off, Lunsford's report states. Someone had placed Hicks' keys on the roof of his car.

Lunsford noted that he "did not detect the odor of any alcoholic beverages" on Hicks and that he was "behaving in an erratic state … when asked for his driver's license he picked up the lid to the center console and dropped it closed." Hicks continued to claw at the console until Guzman reached inside it for him and retrieved his wallet.

Lunsford and Guzman became worried when Hicks did not obey commands to show his hands and exit the car. Seeing that Hicks' left hand was drooping into the side pocket of the driver's door, the officers pulled their handguns.

Hicks still acted befuddled, saying to Lunsford, "that's a 9-millimeter semiautomatic gun that you have," the report states. After ascertaining Hicks was unarmed, Lunsford and Guzman pulled him out of the car through the passenger door and handcuffed him.

In a lawsuit filed last month against Hillsborough County Fire Rescue and the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, agencies that have not reached a settlement with Hicks' heirs, attorneys for his estate say he was examined at the scene by paramedics who "found no medical problems." The paramedics nevertheless suggested Hicks be transported to St. Joseph's Hospital for a psychiatric evaluation, according to the complaint.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/civil/inmates-untreated-fatal-stroke-results-in-1-million-settlement-by/2130278