She told a police officer she was in labor. The Louisville Metro Police Department lieutenant cited her for unlawful camping as the ambulance arrived. She had a baby later that day.
Her water had broken, she said. âIâm leaking out,â she told him. She grabbed a blanket and a few personal effects as a bright orange city dump truck pulled up to remove the makeshift bed.
âAm I being detained?â she asked.
âYes, youâre being detained,â he shouted. âYouâre being detained because youâre unlawfully camping.â
Stewart walked back to his car to write the citation as city workers finished loading the mattress into the garbage truck.
Once in the police vehicle, Stewart narrated to himself as his body camera recorded his comments.
âSo I donât for a second believe that this woman is going into labor,â he said.
He returned to find the woman sitting on the ground, with legs askew and labored breathing, waiting for the ambulance. Stewart hands her a citation, and she balls it up and tosses it aside as the ambulance arrives to take her to the hospital.
This sounds like I am reading some dystopian book, not news.
A friend who quit law enforcement (he was a sheriff's deputy, not police) explained that while the sheriff's office is publicly funded, most police agencies are funded by the general fund of a city, which is where the revenue of their tickets go, so it invariably evolves into rent seeking behavior as law enforcement.
Imagine if all the billions of dollars sunk into policing went to homeless shelters, healthcare and universal basic income. Instead of, you know. It being used to commit acts of violence against mothers going into labor.
The NYPD spent 10's of millions chasing turn style jumpers on the NY Metro in one year. They recovered around $100k in citations doing it. It's not about financial sense when it comes to oppressing the poor.
Now, when the USPS can't "turn a profit" we'll have to immediately destroy it, of course! That also helps bring equity to our society so it needs to go.
Nothing for the conservative is about helping. It's all about preserving the hierarchy and hurting people who aren't rich to begin with.
Made this point to the city council, how fifty years of bulldozing encampments has failed to fix homelessness, but I'm sure if we spend just a few more dollars on making them miserable it'll finally work this time.
I love how the police department's statement basically reads "we called an ambulance and she delivered in a hospital; otherwise, the baby might have been born on the street. We're heroes."
Everything about this is awful. My city just passed such an ordinance while patting themselves on the back about how they're "helping people", all while we have fewer than half the shelter capacity needed to house our homeless. A bunch of people, myself included, turned out to tell them what a crock of shit it was. It still passed 6-1.