
Woman Endured 8 Days in Psych Ward Because Cops Didn't Believe BMW Was Hers - evo_9
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/kamilah-brock-nypd-bmw_55f2c9aae4b063ecbfa3e60d
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zyxley
> Medical records also show that over the course of her eight-day stay,
> personnel at the hospital repeatedly tried to get Brock to deny three things
> before she could be released: that she owned the BMW, that she was a
> professional banker, and that President Barack Obama followed her on
> Twitter.

What the hell? Anyone who did this to her should, at a minimum, be fired and
blacklisted from the medical profession. How long would it take to verify
these things? Sure as hell not eight days.

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superuser2
This is a well-studied phenomenon of mental institutions: staff are acclimated
to everyone in their presence being mentally ill and denying it. Consequently,
they aren't exactly vigilant about finding exceptions. "The patient is lying
and having delusions of grandeur" is probably an accurate assessment 99.999%
of the time, so they are unlikely to doubt that assessment when the patient is
in fact a researcher/journalist investigating the hospital.

~~~
shalmanese
This is the Rosenhan study
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenhan_experiment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenhan_experiment)),
called one of the most influential psycholocial studies of all time.

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a2tech
This is basically my nightmare. Nothing is as personally terrifying to me then
being restrained and medicated.

I also worry about this kind of situation because my wife is black and we live
in a very nice house and both enjoy nice vehicles. Neither of us (both tech
people) enjoy dressing up-so were often poorly dressed. And we're both absent
minded so we've both left our keys inside or had to fiddle with our cars in
the driveway. I worry about how different an interaction with a passing police
person could be for us-for me, an offer of assistance with a lost key, for her
arrest and detainment.

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zero_iq
This is crazy. It would have taken all of 30 seconds to run the plates and
verify the owner. This must surely have been intentional.

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jack9
If she bought it via a loan from a bank, making the bank a financier. If it
was paid off, it might show the bank still owning the car (ie not her) even
though it was the bank's responsibility to transfer back, per the finance
agreement. This has happened to me. The takeaway is that it's not as cut and
dry as you would expect.

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x5n1
And I hope she wins her million dollar verdict and lives happily ever after.

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Debugreality
I'd suggest the fault is more with the police than the hospital... If police
drop someone off and assert she claims to own a BMW but does not, claims to
have a bank job and does not, then the hospital would have to assume she is
delusional about those facts and make a diagnosis on that assumption.

~~~
coldtea
Are those actual doctors or frauds?

If they can't tell a person that DOES have these things (bank job, BMW) from a
dellusional person, then can they really treat dellusional people?

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ape4
Its like a Terry Gilliam movie.

