DELAWARE: Pepper spray use puts Milford cop out of job
I wonder why he did it. Other than to shut her up there does not seem to be much point to it and it cost him his job .
This is the point at which this department needs to be having some serious discussions and training about dealing with people with mental illnesses and cognitive disabilities, but I won’t be holding my breath for that.
Interesting that according to the linked article, there was a specific policy in place against using pepper spray in a hospital. The were supposed to drag her outside and spray her there.
I also got the impression it was to shut her up, and it seems to me there have been some recent Tasings for the same reason. Pepper spray, shot directly down the throat (wich this woman said was done to her), would seem a more effective choice, if not especially humane.
Every time I see a thread like this, I think the cops did a shitty thing, and I’m so glad I’m not a cop because I would probably do the same.
September 27th? And the guy is getting fired NOW?
Over 7 months later?!
Don’t hospitals usually have dedicated staff to deal with psychotic patients? Seems bizarre that after an hour, the best solution they could come up with is have a cop shove pepper-spray down her throat.
Considering that hospitals tend to be places where people with breathing problems and general poor health can be found, forbidding the use of pepper spray in or nearby seems sensible. On the other hand, if you have someone in enough control that you can drag them around you shouldn’t be pepper spraying them at all.
The same could be said for shooting them in the face with a pistol; you shouldn’t do that either to shut up someone chained to a wall. There’s this hi-tech device called a “gag”, you see…or just ignore her. But apparent the small chained woman was just too badass to handle without chemical weaponry.
Why? This is pointless cruelty as well as stupid. If you didn’t have spray would you have beaten the chained woman bloody instead? Broken some of her bones?
Given that the officer who’s responsible has been fired and the officer who was there to supervise has been demoted, I’ll take it that the popo are indeed at fault.
But in general, just because someone is handcuffed doesn’t mean that they’re pacified. Attempting to evoke sympathy with “the small chained woman” is a bit much- even small, handcuffed women can thrash around violently and pepper spray doesn’t seem too heavy-handed at all.
Not defending these officers. I’m glad they didn’t close ranks and refuse to punish their own.
It’s not so much sympathy, as pointing that a small woman chained to a wall isn’t going to be able to do much of anything.
Missed that she was handcuffed to the wall. As you were.
Probably. I find screaming people annoying, so if I had the power I would stop them. Like, I said, I would be a lousy cop.
Mixed bag. That seven months he was on leave, which meant he wasn’t continuiong to serve as a cop.
Of course, he was still getting paid, which probably took some of the sting out of it.
Well, what if you were locked in a room with a baby and it was going to scream so much that you’d go insane? You’d pretty much HAVE to pepper spray it in self defense. And then smother it.
My thoughts are that anyone, cop or not, whose reaction to someone screaming is to unload pepper spray down their throat is the kind of person I’m never near. Yeah, we’ve all thought about wanting to shut up the annoying person/kid/dog, but to actually do it seems sociopathic.
7 months paid vacation?! Yet another reason to pepper spray the handcuffed and helpless.
He should have treated this woman like a baby like Chat Whisperer suggested. A good shaking would have shut her up.
My father is an officer and even he was upset by this officer’s actions. Crap where in this situation the union comes and fights for him. I understand why they do, but 7 months? really not much to defend the cop for.
I doubt he was on vacation. More likely, desk duty of some sort.
No. Such a staff would be very expensive for the hospital–essentially they’d have to be on call because most hospitals don’t deal with pts so disturbed they need to be handcuffed etc every day. You know who ends up having to deal with acting out/ psychotic /manic/high people? Nurses, that’s who. We can call security as back up and we do, but sometimes hospital security is akin to Barney Fife–believe me, I wish that weren’t true!
I’ve had full urinals thrown at me. I’ve been pinched, slapped, shoved, spit on and screamed at regularly in my 20+ years as a nurse (I work in a not so well off part of Chicago). There are a number of ways to restrain out of control pts, not all of them humane, not all of them in keeping with institutional policy. Chemical restraint is most popular and used often, although the school of thought is changing on that as well. Chemical restraint is also known as sedation. Physical restraints are heavily frowned upon right now. Most hospitals have had to get rid of their leather restraints, for example. I haven’t see a pt in leathers in at least 6 years. Other places may still use them—states vary in their laws and a psych unit may well still have them.
Obviously, pepper spray was not the best solution, even after an hour of her screaming. I can’t imagine a scenario to shut someone up in a hospital that would include pepper spray. He was a dumbass to do that, and the staff were dumbasses to allow him (or at least not attempt to prevent him).
I have only seen prisoners handcuffed in the hospital (with an officer in attendance). I have never seen an officer do anything remotely like what this one did. Usually, the cops and the nurses get along very well. And IME, the pts tend to be subdued and very sick (I used to work ICU, not ER–ER gets everything).