That’s the thing tho, if her sitting in her wheelchair where she was was in the way of something, why wasn’t her empty chair also considered an obstruction? After dumping the woman like so much garbage, the officer just walked away, leaving her chair in the same place.
Rumours are circulating among Ohio conservatives (at least, the ones I know) that these protesters aren’t really disabled, and use the wheelchairs in order to appear more sympathetic.
I have no idea whether or not this is true (and Ockham’s razor, etc.), but it just goes to show… well, I don’t know. That people are insane, I guess.
That’s a question state officials need to be asking.
I suspect there will be more demonstrations over health care. Police need to remember many of these people have health problems and may be fragile They are frightened for their futures. A little compassion would certainly help.
Rumors spread like wildfire in a leadership vacuum. No one knows what’s going to happen next. I’ve gotten several phone calls from older relatives. I’m just as worried about my family’s health care premiums.
The real tragedy is that people take videos like this in portrait rather than landscape mode. Most of the time, I can’t see anything. When was the person dumped out of the chair?
In watching the OP’s video, I’d agree with you; however, in watching the longer, Esquire video, the people in the wheelchairs were flaming assholes who should have at least been tazed, if not taken out back & given one to the base of the skull*.
- They are inside a building - private property; they are trespassing. Not such a biggie in & of itself.
- EMS comes in for an unrelated issue & the protesters won’t let the medics / stretcher pass.
- EMS gets upstairs but then they go right back to blocking the doors (to the hallway where the freight elevator is, I presume)
- PD shows up & they still won’t get out of the way.
- At 11 minutes in, you can see one of the backup officers physically dragging an electric wheelchair backwards to make room.
- Once he lets go & moves on, she moves forward again. Base of the skull her.
- There is an able-bodied man who is moved out of the way & then wiggles back to where he was, in the way. Him too.
- Additional backup arrives.
- The female officer who dumps her out of the wheelchair moved the wheelchair just far enough to open passageway for EMS to egress. Further, by dumping her out, she then can’t roll back into the way again as numerous others have already done.
- Alright, so I agree that’s wrong; there’s no need to take them out back first. :dubious:
I watched that video too, and I don’t see the rear wheels of the chair come off the floor very much. It looks an awful lot like the woman threw herself out of the chair - she goes flying as if she was rocket-launched, and then begins moaning on the floor.
Here’s a longer version of other people flinging themselves to the floor.
My Outrage Meter keeps dropping every time I watch the vids.
Regards,
Shodan
I watched several times and I can’t really tell if the cop tipped the chair or not. Honestly, it looks there is a possibility that the cop just pushed the chair and it’s occupant took a dramatic fall for the camera.
My sense was that the police officer tried to move the chair, but only the front wheels were locked. The tip happened and the person in the chair went with it, in a manner resembling well-trained civil disobedience.
When the chair tipped, the officer wheeled left, I think looking for advice or back-up, like “Oh, $#!| what do I do now?”
It seems like an unfortunate accident. My primary objection is to the idea that folks have the right to “move” a wheelchair with a person in it. It’s a massive invasion of personal independence. To my mind, that’s the same as shoving a standing person out of your way. If they fall, you are culpable.
She was blocking the elevator and preventing (allegedly) EMS from bringing someone into the ER.
I understand that she doesn’t want her Medicaid cut, but interfering with emergency personnel goes way beyond civil disobedience. IMO. YMMV.
Regards,
Shodan
On the flip side of this is that you are trespassing and refusing to follow police orders you’re going to get physically removed. If you get hurt during that removal you are the culpable one, assuming the cop uses reasonable force.
If this is true, why did they dump her out of the chair and then just walk away?
Because she was then out of the way.
The video shows lots of other protesters lying on the floor blocking the elevators. Maybe the cop was going off to drag others out of the way, or to push other wheelchairs out of the way, or to prevent people from blocking the EMS personnel who weren’t in wheelchairs.
Or who knows what - maybe he dumped her out of the chair to keep her from driving her chair back in front of the elevator again. Or maybe he didn’t dump her at all, but she flung herself to the floor and began to moan histrionically to play for the cameras. Or all of the above, or none of the above.
The police shouldn’t be hurting people if they can avoid it. OTOH EMS is bringing in an emergency case, and these people’s tantrums are stopping that case from being treated. Some concerns are more immediate than this woman’s worries about her Medicaid being cut, and if you are going to block access to the emergency room, you run the risk that the police don’t handle you with kid gloves. Even if you are in a wheelchair.
Regards,
Shodan
Yeah, but if the cops are clearing a path for the EMTs through the World-Cup style overactors, then…you’d think there would be a path for the EMTs when they were done.
Doesn’t seem like that turns out to be the case.
More on that incident and its aftermath:
*"A group of protesters demanded that a man accused of jumping on an officer and grabbing the officer’s gun at the Columbus Pride parade be released from the Franklin County Jail Monday.
According to court records, Deandre Miles has posted bond at the Franklin County Jail, but jail staff said he remained in custody early in the afternoon.
A judge set his bond at $200,000 for a felony count of aggravated robbery.
Miles was among four protesters arrested Saturday after police said the protesters ignored orders to leave a street near City Hall.
Court records show Ashley Braxton, Micah Jones, and Kendall Denton face a variety of misdemeanor charges, including disorderly conduct.
Cell phone video recorded the incident, which involved officers using mace.
Protester Dkeama Alexis says her friends intended to disrupt the Pride parade for several minutes to raise awareness about the violence against transgender women, as well as the recent acquittal of a Minnesota police officer who shot and killed Philando Castile.
“Although it might’ve been an obstruction to the proceedings, it was necessary,” Alexis said. “The point of the protest was also that queer and trans people of color do not feel they have a place at Pride or within the larger LGBTQ community.”
Police said four officers were injured in the confrontation, including one officer who tore an ACL. "*
That made me sad too.
Were the EMTs able to bring the patient into the ER? I haven’t heard either way.
But maybe you are right - the longer vid to which I linked shows some other, non-wheelchair bound protesters wiggling back in front of what I believe is a different elevator, after they were dragged out of the way. I did not see the woman referred to in the OP jumping back up and blocking anything, so at least she was successfully removed.
If there were others who did, then that’s too bad. Maybe the police needed to cuff them or something to keep them out of the way. “The big mean cop wouldn’t let me deny someone access to emergency services, and he was really rough!” Boo hoo hoo - Crimea river.
Regards,
Shodan
I don’t know this particular building but service elevators are typically hidden from public view.
EMS prefers service elevators because they are both larger (can accommodate the stretcher & EMS personnel & can go direct to the desired floor, either where the call is or back down to the lobby without stopping at every floor where someone wants to get on. (When you push the elevator button, you don’t know what’s going to be on the other side when it stops, empty, regular people, EMS rushing to an emergency, or a dancing deputy yeah, it’s staged, but so what).
It appeared that PD was clearing an area so that the door from the service elevator hallway could be opened. Once that is done, then they’d move on to clearing a path to get the stretcher outside.
If the protestors had any sense of decency, they wouldn’t have interfered with EMS in the first place. They also didn’t listen to building security or the first PD on scene, which, I’m guessing, is why backup was called. In at least two cases, people who were physically moved out of the way then deliberately moved themselves back into the way again.
Yes, because burning down the ROTC building is totally groovy.