A must read story about police, drugs & healthcare in our great nation

[Serial Mom]

With all the hype about Gates & the police and minorities and the supposed "not-for-profit healthcare system", check out this little story!



NY man settles suit over arrest, forced sedation
(AP) – Jul 18, 2009

ALBANY, N.Y. — A man who sued after he was forcibly sedated at an Albany hospital so authorities could search his body for drugs will get $125,000 in an out-of-court settlement.

Tunde Clement was arrested at an Albany bus terminal in 2006 by police who suspected him of carrying drugs.

When they couldn't find anything, he was brought to Albany Medical Center Hospital and sedated while doctors put a camera in his rectum. The hospital and Albany County officials said they were worried Clement had ingested drugs and was in grave danger.

No drugs were ever found, and a charge of resisting arrest was tossed out by a judge.

But the final indignity came when the hospital sent Clement a bill for $6,792.

[mdmc]

1. wild story

[TexasObserver]

2. Our police state, where doctors help government thugs commit heinous crimes.

[mnhtnbb]

3. That's seriously FUBAR.

[Serial Mom]

4. Why would the hospital say they were worried about ingestion of drugs?

How could they have possibly come to that conclusion? And then to send HIM the bill instead of the police department!

[malletgirl02]

6. China

It is almost on the level of what Chinese officials would do.

[Mythsaje]

5. Did they even have a warrant?

I think sticking a camera up someone's ass without one consists of a SERIOUS breech of the 4th Amendment...

Ah...but it was actually a "medical emergency." Well... Good thing it turned out like it did for all concerned. If they HAD'VE found drugs, would he have been charged with possession or would the lack of a warrant have made it impossible to prosecute?

Makes ME wonder, anyway.

[Greyhound]

14. "We don't need no stinking warrants"! n/t

[malletgirl02]

7. Distrubing

So you don't have the rights to either your own body or your own house. Someone said this upthread are are in a police state.

[Serial Mom]

8. Healthcare affordable?!?! $6,792 for a camera scope??

I know the sedation cost something too - this was like a colonscopy, but the patient did not ask for it and that still is a high cost!

[Naturyl]

9. That's close to rape.

The $125k is well-deserved.

[crickets]

15. It was rape.

Outcry over Sheriff's Department search methods
http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=668451&category=REGIONOTHER&BCCode=HOME&newsdate=3/3/2008

Tunde Clement is no angel, but on that day he was doing absolutely nothing wrong. The officers who arrested him never even bothered to get a search warrant.

The doctors asked Clement to sign a consent form, but he refused.

The medical records show one of the doctors placed a call to the hospital's risk management director to assess the liability exposure of what they were about to do.

In some cases, prisoners or people under arrest can be forcibly sedated without a court order if they are in imminent danger, such as when a bag of drugs bursts open inside them and they begin to have a seizure or fall unconscious. But the hospital's records indicate Clement was behaving normally and showed no signs of any medical emergency.

"Spoke to Shirley of Risk Management," a physician wrote, documenting the medical decision-making that afternoon. "OK to treat, sedate & remove FOB (foreign object body) against (patient's) will despite his personal refusal."

There was no medical evidence of FOB, no medical emergency requiring treatment. Yet the hospital employees violated him anyway, and had the nerve to bill him for it.

Frankly, I don't think $125k was enough.

[strategery blunder]

10. Should be more like $12.5M.

Not only a blatant, willful, and egregious violation of the 4th amendment, but also government-sanctioned rape. :grr:

[paulsby]

11. good for him

that sounds like an egregious abuse of power.

[lexanman]

12. He obviously

didn't show them his papers quick enough and in a submissive enough manner. He clearly deserved it. He probably yelled at them too, which you know is a crime.

[Greyhound]

13. But it's NOT a police state!

Amurika is blessed by god, righteous in her freedom, and he had no business in that bus station anyways.