# Woman given notice of trespassing, for using restroom at Emory University Hospital. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 18, 2017, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woman-given-notice-of-trespassing-for-using-restroom-at-emory-university-hospital/786896 "2017-05-18T04:44:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Spiderman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiderman/32/230_2.png) [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2017, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woman-given-notice-of-trespassing-for-using-restroom-at-emory-university-hospital/786896/61 "2017-05-24T01:44:56Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > I doubt she did anything to deserve that treatment except to be black in an place that gets frequented by a mostly black homeless population. I used to live in that area and I can tell you it’s a difficult situation. I got in the habit of ignoring every single person who said “excuse me sir” because it was almost always a pitch for spare change. Did I profile people unfairly? Probably, and I feel bad about it, but I don’t have the time or energy to sort out one legit person from 20 scammers. > > I’m sure the guard absolutely could have done a better job, race was probably involved, and there may have been some miscommunication. But I can also definitely understand how a person can get desensitized to the endless stream of contrived hard-luck stories. She looks reasonably ‘kempt’ in that video but how long after the incident did TV interview her. Just curious, but I wonder what she did that morning; did she roll out of bed & go to the gym before stopping to visit Unk on the way home? I don’t bother to shower before working out. Was she sweaty, smelly, & unkempt after a tough class at the gym? Note, I am in _no way_ defending the guard. I think there is a dearth of public toilets in this country. Other countries have pay toilets, which I have _never_ seen in this country, but they cost a nickel or a dime, not the cost of a slice of pizza or a Big Mac necessary to become a patron of whatever restaurant you walk into to pee. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2017, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woman-given-notice-of-trespassing-for-using-restroom-at-emory-university-hospital/786896/62 "2017-05-24T03:05:53Z")
> [@Spiderman](#): > > She looks reasonably ‘kempt’ in that video but how long after the incident did TV interview her. Just curious, but I wonder what she did that morning; did she roll out of bed & go to the gym before stopping to visit Unk on the way home? I don’t bother to shower before working out. Was she sweaty, smelly, & unkempt after a tough class at the gym? Being pregnant, likely not, but I have no idea. Some homeless people are a lot better put together than you might expect, being couch-surfers or in some other temporary state of homelessness. I’ve been solicited by people with better shoes than me (though admittedly I don’t put in a lot of effort in the shoe department). ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2017, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woman-given-notice-of-trespassing-for-using-restroom-at-emory-university-hospital/786896/63 "2017-05-24T12:17:14Z")
> [@Spiderman](#): > > I think there is a dearth of public toilets in this country. Other countries have pay toilets, which I have _never_ seen in this country, but they cost a nickel or a dime, not the cost of a slice of pizza or a Big Mac necessary to become a patron of whatever restaurant you walk into to pee. There used to be a lot of pay toilets in the US. I remember a lot of them in the 1960s. There was actually a successful movement to ban them in the 1970-s – The Committee to End Pay Toilets ( [Committee to End Pay Toilets in America - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_to_End_Pay_Toilets_in_America) ) The hope was that we’d have a lot of free toilets. You do, indeed, have free public toilets in tourist-infested places and at National Parks and Monuments and at large shopping malls and stores (since they want to encourage foot traffic). Good luck finding them elsewhere. There was an experiment a few years back where they put out new pay toilets that cleaned themselves between uses, accepted various coin inputs, and discouraged people staying in them too long (so they wouldn’t end up as de facto homeless shelters), and we had some here in Boston. But these seem to have disappeared. ( [Sanisette - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanisette)[N.Y.C. replaces self-cleaning public toilets - nj.com](http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/12/new_york_city_replaces_self-cl.html)) ---
**Author:** ![Spiderman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiderman/32/230_2.png) [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2017, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woman-given-notice-of-trespassing-for-using-restroom-at-emory-university-hospital/786896/64 "2017-05-24T13:57:05Z")
> [@Spiderman](#): > > Note, I am in _no way_ defending the guard. > [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Being pregnant, likely not, but I have no idea. If I had to pick between defending the guard & defending your comment I’d suddenly want to defend the guard. Standing between you & a mob of (pregnant) women with torches & pitchforks who want your hide for that comment is nucking futz. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2017, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woman-given-notice-of-trespassing-for-using-restroom-at-emory-university-hospital/786896/65 "2017-05-25T15:24:10Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > As for “there’s more to the story”, yes, part of it was that she was nonwhite (i.e. black) and I guessed that from the outset; however, I also suspected that she started acting belligerent or otherwise disruptive and the guard took action, whether her pregnancy was obvious or not. Was there an update to the story? I haven’t seen one yet but this sounds like a “see, I knew it” statement. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woman-given-notice-of-trespassing-for-using-restroom-at-emory-university-hospital/786896.md?page=3)