
Ways to manage conflicts with cops in a medical emergency - smacktoward
http://www.ems1.com/ems-advocacy/articles/1476128-5-ways-to-manage-conflicts-with-cops-in-a-medical-emergency/
======
copsarebastards
> Police officers are trained to be aggressive, assertive, controlling, and
> correct in all situations.

Well maybe this should change.

I am a night owl and sometimes take walks at night. I don't drink, I'm
completely sober. Nevertheless I've been stopped and patted down a few times.
Once I was illegally searched because the officer "smelled weed" (I favor
legalization, but I haven't smoked since college--I don't like how it makes me
feel). And I'm a white guy in my late 20s who dresses like a businessy nerd--
if I weren't who knows whether I'd be in jail for some made-up charge by now.

Cops in the US have a combative relationship with the people they serve and
that has to change. They work for us--we need to get them under control.

Stopping medical professionals from doing their jobs puts the lives of
civilians in danger. Cops should be required to defer to medical professionals
unequivocally.

~~~
knodi123
I went for a walk late at night, trying to clear my head after a rough
breakup. I was just wearing my pajamas, and was walking the sidewalks just a
few blocks from home.

I turned down a nearby alley in order to head back home, and was half way down
it when a creepy-looking car with no lights on squeaked to a stop and blocked
off the end of the alley. I froze and looked at it, and that's when the
spotlight came on, and I realized it was a cop.

Unfortunately, my thought process went "oh, I must look suspicious. But wait,
I don't have any ID. Maybe they didn't see me yet...", so I hopped into a
driveway, out of sight of the cop. Oops, bad move. They went full lights-and-
siren, and burned rubber down the alley towards me.

I took off running towards my house, zigzagging between houses to break line
of sight. When I got back home, I hopped my fence and went in the back door,
just because it was the closest entrance.

Double-unfortunately, apparently the cops decided I was a serious threat, and
several minutes later I looked out the window to a police car in my own alley,
following a cop with a german shepherd. The dog circled my property, and then
barked at the fence, so the cops kicked my gate down and searched my back
yard. They jiggled the doors and windows, found them locked, and decided to
call it a night.

I got up early the next morning to fix my gate, and my parents never found out
about it.

~~~
nostromo
I think we just have too many bored cops.

After crime fell dramatically in the US, we should have laid off a few.
Instead we just hired more and more and more. Now we're seeing the effects of
over-policing.

[http://i.imgur.com/vjqZQO4.png](http://i.imgur.com/vjqZQO4.png)

~~~
LordKano
I agree.

Police have too much free time. Basically, their career path requires that
they bring in money or arrests and if crime is down, they'll find ways to meet
the unofficial quotas that are held over them.

Crime is down. This is the predictable result of having more police officers
to handle less crime. Add in other factors like increasing militarization of
law enforcement and the disqualification of people with high IQs and we get
the mess that we have today.

~~~
cauterized
Disqualification of people with high IQs?

~~~
LordKano
Yes. Sounds ridiculous, right?

Search for Jordan V. New London.

------
JshWright
I'm a paramedic. The scenario described in the article is pretty rare... There
are certainly various anecdotes to be shared, but this is not some systemic
issue. Cops generally see EMS (and, by and large, Fire/Rescue) as being 'on
the same team'. I have never once had a cop question my judgement... I would
be completely flabbergasted if it ever happened.

~~~
ludicast
I agree. I'm a fireman with the FDNY and cops absolutely are on our side (and
the same side as EMS as well).

In the past 12 years there only was one time where I even witnessed tension
between us and them (an elevator emergency with victims, where ESU (New York's
SWAT equivalent) and FDNY had overlapping jurisdictions). The bench-clearing
hockey game brawls are the stuff of TV.

Cops are by and large professionals, who get shot in the face while protecting
the same community that vilifies them for a few bad apples.

~~~
tsunamifury
On your side? Against who?!

~~~
JshWright
Don't read too much into that... He just meant that Law/Fire/EMS are not on
different sides. Saying that people are not on different sides does not imply
another side even exists in the first place.

The fact is that emergency responders _do_ end up getting
attacked/assaulted/etc on a surprisingly regular basis. I can't remember the
last time I didn't get at least verbally assaulted by someone at least once a
week. Physical confrontations are all too common, and having law enforcement
there when someone takes a swing at you is a very helpful thing... While there
doesn't have to be two sides, that doesn't stop some idiots from choosing to
make up their own side... When that happens, I'm glad to have someone with a
taser and a gun on my 'side'.

------
larzang
A much larger and more frequent issue than police/emt conflict over the
handling of medical emergencies is police being dispatched to medical
emergencies as sole or first responders and handling it like... police.

There have been dozens of cases in the past few years in which police have
been sent to medical emergencies and responded with unwarranted and fatal
violence towards the people they should have been helping. That's not even
counting cases like Kenneth Chamberlain Sr, in which there was no emergency,
officers were notified of this shortly after arriving, and they proceeded to
assault and murder a man who had done nothing wrong in his own home anyway.

Calling 911 for assistance for a mentally ill family member can literally be a
death sentence, and that is an intolerable state of affairs.

~~~
JshWright
I absolutely understand what you're saying, and this is not an attempt to
justify the cases you've described.

However... Attacks on EMS workers are also a real problem, and I am glad for
the presence of law enforcement on the scene of my EMS calls on a very regular
basis. It is also common practice for EMS to wait for police to arrive and
'secure' a scene if the nature of the call sounds like there is a chance the
encounter could turn violent (or that we could be walking into an already
violent encounter).

~~~
copsarebastards
That's absolutely a decision I would rather leave to EMS workers rather than
cops.

~~~
JshWright
In most cases it's up to the dispatcher, or, more likely, the dispatching
software (if the call meets XYZ criteria, dispatch police).

------
tgokh
I volunteer in EMS and I've only once encountered a similar situation where
the police officer disagreed with our judgment to transport a patient, but
before I could even grab my medic, the cop got chewed out by his sergeant.

I have run across a couple police officers wanting to clear lanes of traffic
on the highway faster than we were comfortable with (when responding to a car
accident), but our first responders (fire department, usually dispatched to
most car accidents to provide initial medical care, extrication, scene
protection etc) have always been good with maintaining scene safety.

------
JeremyMorgan
I'm an EMS professional and am very fortunate to work in an area where the
local culture prevents much of this from happening. While it's primarily
rural, we do mutual aid in the larger nearby cities ( around 10-90k people in
each) and the culture is the same there. The cops respect the opinions of the
EMS and Fire professionals in every case I can remember, and at the same time
we rely on them for safety and respect their opinion in that regard.

This is still fantastic advice however.

~~~
rmxt
I immediately thought..."you must work in Vermont, Oregon, or a blue part of
the Midwest, or some place like that." Judging from your profile, looks like I
was right. I wish this mentality and culture were more pervasive across the
United States.

EDIT: My point above was less about a specific "culture of respect for EMS
workers", and more about a "culture of respect for non-law enforcement" in
general that law enforcement does not always seem to have in the United
States. Rethinking, it might not be the red/blue state divide as responders
have pointed out. I still do think that there's a geographic component to law
enforcement culture. I completely agree that urban areas, though a blue
general population, regularly show instances of oppressive police culture.
With the above, I was more trying to point out that in those areas there are
generally less reports of oppressive and abusive police behavior. However,
maybe the effect that I am trying to point out is an illusion of sample size.
Either way, I think we would all be in a better place could we extrapolate the
small-town police vibe to large urban areas. Yes, it's idealistic, but
removing the adversarial relationship between big city PDs and their
populations is something worth striving for.

[https://xkcd.com/1138/](https://xkcd.com/1138/)

~~~
protomyth
"blue part of the Midwest"

I'm in a red part of the Midwest and the cops I know (many friends from HS or
cycling in as security at the local workplaces) know when an EMT says
"transport", thats it. It helps that some of the EMT's are former cops, but
they know the story.

~~~
msandford
Hilarious that rmxt thinks the police could only be professional in a liberal-
leaning area.

You know, like the extremely professional folks in Seattle PD, which is also
in a blue city in a blue state.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_and_politics_of_Seat...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_and_politics_of_Seattle)

Oh wait, I was completely wrong about that.

[http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Feds-findings-in-
Seat...](http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Feds-findings-in-Seattle-
Police-abuse-2407378.php)

That's not to say that all the people who work for Seattle PD are bad apples
that need to be fired. But I'm sure a few of them are, if the whole department
is getting investigated by the Justice Department.

~~~
rmxt
Maybe I shouldn't have included the "blue" remark in my original comment.
Perhaps it's not a red/blue issue, but I do think that there's a geographic
component to it. I completely agree that unprofessionalism can and does rear
it's head in otherwise quite "blue" urban areas. Maybe it's a mere function of
there being more cops in urban areas, and it's just that the bad apples stand
out. (i.e., [https://xkcd.com/1138/](https://xkcd.com/1138/))

~~~
msandford
I think it's more an issue of incentives than political inclination or
geography. The police have a lot of power. Any investigations into officer
misconduct (at least prior to widespread cellphones) generally resulted in the
officer being cleared. That means that there's little/no incentive NOT to do
something bad; the odds you get caught are minuscule.

Even if there are no truly evil, bad actors the lack of a restraining force
means that even with random events and outcomes, officers will tend to behave
worse and worse on average. Initially bad events are outliers but as more
happen with no repercussions the average slowly creeps towards "worse" and
what used to be rare becomes commonplace.

So to me it's clear that the police need better management from folks who
really get a kick out of putting very, very bad guys behind bars. If a normal
person murders someone they get the full force of the justice system against
them. If an officer does so, currently they tend to get white glove treatment.

We're seeing that the trend might be changing a little in Baltimore, but we
won't know for sure until the trial is done. They don't have to be convicted
in order to know that the trend has changed, but they need to be VIGOROUSLY
prosecuted for what happened.

------
ck2
> Police officers are trained to be aggressive, assertive, controlling, and
> correct in all situations

No, not in all situations.

When they see other cops doing clearly illegal things they don't do a damn
thing.

That needs to completely change.

------
junto
Was the police officer in the original story sued or prosecuted out of
interest? Because he should be.

I'd be so angry if one of my family members died because a cop thought he was
a more qualified paramedic than a trained paramedic.

~~~
tomjen3
Frankly I am flabgastered as to why the EMT in the story convinced the jury
too. You don't go against medical advice. Arrest the guy in the hospital if
need be.

------
mpdehaan2
All my interactions with law enforcement have been exceedingly positive and
very polite (all in NC), modulo the local rural county where I grew up, where
it was common for at least one of them to follow you driving home for 20
minutes home from school to see if you ever committed a traffic violation. I'm
guessing that guy is retired now.

Assuming the police are up to no good going into a situation will make things
end badly, and creates a toxic culture.

That being said, recent events make it clear that monitoring is a very good
thing, and I think would be widely welcomed from both sides of the coin.

I think it's fair to say there are bad apples, and I greatly support the body
camera plan for dealing with it and making it possible to request review when
someone thinks they are treated unfairly, and this also prevents them from
being treated unfairly in false claims.

------
tfigueroa
That's a sad story, but a very interesting case I hadn't considered.

The techniques are useful here in software, too: build a report, don't always
go head-to-head, bring in an outside authority, etc. Technical types tend to
approach things in technical ways that non-technical types cannot appreciate.

------
trhway
given what they do in such situations involved people, it is no wonder when a
police officer would not let owner to take his dog wounded by the police to
the vet for an hour

[http://www.11alive.com/story/news/local/2014/07/25/police-
sh...](http://www.11alive.com/story/news/local/2014/07/25/police-shoot-dog-
dekalb/13191011/)

------
CamperBob2
_Don’t waste your breath telling them how much they don’t know or why they are
wrong. Instead, calmly remind them of the liability they are inviting and
accepting by not allowing you to do your job._

What liability? We don't hold cops responsible for jack shit in America.
Unless they are literally filmed in the act of murder, the worst consequence
they'll ever see is a paid vacation.

------
andyl
I've worked EMS in lots of urban and rural areas. Have never experienced
conflict between EMS and LE. Would not want provide EMS without Police
involvement - the two roles go hand-in-hand.

------
pXMzR2A
> After a long and complicated trial, the jury agreed that my client was not
> at fault.

The client EMS is as much at fault as the police officer.

He let someone whom he knew in his medical opinion to be having a serious
medical problem go to jail because he was intimidated.

If he's not at fault, no medic ever is at fault for anything, even those who
are present and supervise torture and police brutality, because "oh I'm sorry
I was intimidated."

~~~
JshWright
Did you read the article? The patient did not go to jail. There was a 10
minute delay in care, until the patient became unresponsive and was
transported to the hospital.

Do you really see no difference in culpability between someone standing by and
allowing torture to happen, vs someone who attempts to argue with, but
eventually concedes to a guy carrying a gun?

~~~
pXMzR2A
> Did you read the article?

Yes.

> The patient did not go to jail.

The patient was almost taken to jail. The EMS left him there to be transported
to jail.

> There was a 10 minute delay in care, until the patient became unresponsive
> and was transported to the hospital.

Please don't be apologetic for other people's screw ups. We have enough of
that everywhere already.

"Oh it was _just_ 10 minutes more of stroking and stuff. No biggie." It's a
stroke, you die in that 10 minutes.

> Do you really see no difference in culpability between someone standing by
> and allowing torture to happen, vs someone who attempts to argue with, but
> eventually concedes to a guy carrying a gun?

No.

We are talking about the legal system, where such cases can be used as
precedents.

When you are an EMS or physician otherwise, you were at fault, and it is
pardoned because "I was so very much intimidated oh my," it will be pardoned
as long as you can prove you were "intimidated."

"Oh judge it was a CIA agent, I was intimidated so I stayed and supervised
it."

I find it disturbing and disgusting that (1) the defense attorney is using
_that_ as an excuse, and (2) the EMS allows his defense attorney to do that.

And where is the lawsuit against the cop for intimidation (civil) and
misconduct (criminal)?

~~~
JshWright
I'm not excusing a 10 minute delay. I am just describing what happened, and
that the patient did not, in fact, go to jail. In the case of a stroke every
second matters. "Time is brain" as the saying goes...

The paramedic absolutely screwed up. He should have called his supervisor, or
his medical control physician. He was inexperienced and let himself get pushed
around and eventually backed down when he should have stood up for his
patient. I still don't see how you can remotely compare that to being a
willing participant in a crime.

