US police again... man dies in custody after being dragged away from a hospital for "trespassing"

dowie · 30 Jan 2018 at 21:22

http://www.oudaily.com/news/you-can...cle_877f9aaa-02f9-11e8-a627-2fd268a54151.html

Body camera footage released by the Norman Police Department this week shows footage of officers taunting a distressed man who was found dead in a jail cell hours later, according to police reports.

Marconia Kessee, 34, was pronounced dead at the Norman Regional Hospital Jan. 16 after being found unresponsive in a cell at the Cleveland County Detention Center two hours after an altercation with police.

Around 7:30 p.m. Jan. 16, Norman police responded to a reported disturbance inside the waiting area at the Norman Regional Hospital's Porter Campus, where they found a hospital security guard with Kessee, according to the report. Kessee had been seen by medical staff and released, but refused to leave, the report states.

Two officers, later identified as Master Police Officer Kyle Canaan and Officer Daniel Brown, assisted Kessee into a wheelchair and escorted him outside to take him to the Salvation Army located across the street, according to the report.

One officer's body camera video footage, released by the Norman Police Department, shows Kessee stand up and fall to the ground while shaking and yelling. It is unclear what he is saying.

One officer is heard on the footage saying, "You can't just act like this to get back in the hospital, that's not how it works."

I'm going to assume that he had no insurance and then combine that with the (presumably) mental health issues = medics couldn't be bothered with him and certainly won't want to keep him in overnight at a cost of thousands to the hospital (presumably run by a private company). I'm pretty sure that in a UK hospital if you believe you're incorrectly discharged I doubt you'd be thrown out for going back to A&E and trying to get yourself re-admitted... granted you'd probably be at the back of a several hour long queue and low priority.

Malevolence · 30 Jan 2018 at 21:29

It was obvious that he died, or was going to die - his shoes came off.

jsmoke · 30 Jan 2018 at 21:42

Need to get all the facts. The police didn't look to be treating him too harsh. But it is a tough deal over there regarding medical insurance although we do pay NI so it's not free over here just cheaper and more security if your on a low wage or homeless etc.

Doesn't look like a major incident or one that will open a big debate, ironically Trump does want affordable health care but I guess if your totally poor or homeless your going to die.

platinum87 · 31 Jan 2018 at 05:17

The important thing to note is that

"Kessee had been seen by medical staff and released, but refused to leave"

In the UK the police will remove you from the premises in this situation 100%

Police did nothing wrong here.

Hotwired · 31 Jan 2018 at 05:52

Looks like a combo deal on poor police behaviour and the US health system where healthcare requires a freakish amount of money.

Avenged7Fold · 31 Jan 2018 at 10:27

A healthcare system based upon serving pharmaceutical, medical and insurance corporations before serving its citizens. Exclusive lucrative contracts are traded for favours and political backing, with little restriction in place to encourage fair prices and production of vital drugs.

Our health care system started out to serve citizens and though some of the top dogs now dig into the budget to waste on lucrative contracts for similar reasons (much more under the table), i cant help but feel that the attitudes to delivering healthcare is different to the attitude over the pond.

My experience with hospitals here (which was not all that much until last year) is that I as a patient am far more eager to be released and go home before they would allow me to. Even when at the end they asked me if i felt okay i can go home or if i was not sure i could stay another night. From the sounds of it, the patient in OP did not get the same treatment.

More info is needed on the scenario before casting stones. The comments were certainly unnecessary as far as policing goes. As dowie says though, likely an issue of cost and poor healthcare attitude. No one here is denied from going back to A&E so long as they do not endanger anyone or prevent people from working.

dowie · 31 Jan 2018 at 10:41

platinum87 said:
The important thing to note is that

"Kessee had been seen by medical staff and released, but refused to leave"

In the UK the police will remove you from the premises in this situation 100%

Police did nothing wrong here.

That isn't necessarily true, you get looked at by A&E... they screw up... you could be seen again. I know someone who was misdiagnosed in hospital, the staff sent her home with painkillers but when she questioned it she was told she could wait to be seen again (essentially sit on some plastic chairs for hours). Given she was in pain and couldn't sit like that without it exacerbating things she went home to lay down in bed - it turned out sending her home was the wrong thing to do and the hospital should have waited for some test results... incident did generate a complaint and the hospital was at fault.

Big issues in this case is likely private healthcare and a guy likely with no insurance and mental health issues - I'd wager that with insurance, in a for profit US hospital, he'd be admitted if he demanded it because he was in pain to the point where he couldn't walk.

Hotwired · 31 Jan 2018 at 10:46

platinum87 said:
The important thing to note is that

"Kessee had been seen by medical staff and released, but refused to leave"

In the UK the police will remove you from the premises in this situation 100%

Police did nothing wrong here.

That's saying the police would have acted the same to someone kicked out of a hospital.

Maybe, give or take a bit on attitude.

But the police attended because the medical staff kicked him out. If this was in the UK would differences in remit of the hospital have given a different result.

Felon · 31 Jan 2018 at 10:59

dowie said:
I'm going to assume that he had no insurance and then combine that with the (presumably) mental health issues = medics couldn't be bothered with him and certainly won't want to keep him in overnight at a cost of thousands to the hospital (presumably run by a private company).

I don't know if you've spent much time in the US in places like LA or SF, but the amount of people with mental health issues just roaming around is pretty eye opening, our company has apartments in Santa Monica, and every other morning I'd open the door - and there'd be people just in a daze, or laying down not 1 or 2 - but all over the place, completely lost souls, it was almost as though a mental asylum had opened it's doors and let them all out.

There's nothing for them, no services, no help, no support at all, so they just roam the streets half dead, it's really weird - especially in somewhere like Santa Monica where there's a lot of money, palm tree lined streets, expensive apartments and well-to-do young professionals attending over-priced pilates classes, to see wrecked mental patients roaming around among them is just bizarre.

For me the main problem with these people, is that due to their very nature (shambling around, making noise, associations with drugs and alcohol etc) is that they're dealt with by the criminal system, when they should really be dealt with by a health system of some sort, but I guess that's impossible to do in the US.

Avenged7Fold · 31 Jan 2018 at 11:22

I agree with that point. I imagine we still have quite a few people with mental health issues that are homeless and out of sight here but we are leaps and bounds better for support and treatment.

As much GD love to bash younger generations of people, i cant help but feel that much of the push for better mental healthcare and support is coming from them and despite not facing the same issue as the US, we still have a long way to go as far as awareness and support goes. The more we open our eyes to the issue, the more we realize how widespread it is.

Freakbro · 31 Jan 2018 at 11:32

Avenged7Fold said:
I agree with that point. I imagine we still have quite a few people with mental health issues that are homeless and out of sight here but we are leaps and bounds better for support and treatment.

As much GD love to bash younger generations of people, i cant help but feel that much of the push for better mental healthcare and support is coming from them and despite not facing the same issue as the US, we still have a long way to go as far as awareness and support goes. The more we open our eyes to the issue, the more we realize how widespread it is.

A VERY depressing article on the BBC today that highlights how close we can all be to falling through the cracks, even with our welfare system

You're on the verge of losing everything - but you don’t understand why

VincentHanna · 31 Jan 2018 at 11:41

I read that earlier.

That guy has been through the ringer!

Avenged7Fold · 31 Jan 2018 at 13:02

VincentHanna said:
I read that earlier.

That guy has been through the ringer!

Yeah sounds awful. Taking a look at the situation that put him there, all it takes is for you to be unfortunate enough to be unable to work due to illness/accident and to have no one else to financially depend upon. A scary thought

IronWarrior · 31 Jan 2018 at 15:33

Malevolence said:
It was obvious that he died, or was going to die - his shoes came off.

So true, once they come off, you are dead for sure.

But anyway, it's the American Police, what do we expect from them?

solado · 31 Jan 2018 at 16:38

Slightly off topic but I worked in the NHS for 4 years and some of that was on a ward. How the medical staff kept their cool is beyond me. Majority of patients were completely fine but there was people who had to be removed from the ward by police.

I remember one woman who was admitted due to drink related problems and was deemed fit for discharge after a successful detox. Turns out she had other ideas and pretty much threw a paddy over the discharge for completely no reason.

She was risking other vulnerable people by her behaviour and as a result it became a risk. She had to be dragged kicking and screaming off the ward by the police after 2 hours of wasted tax payers money on the police. Coupled with the wasted tax payers money for the NHS side room being blocked for 24 hours.

Basically it's easy for someone with a camera to make it look like a vulnerable woman being dragged off a ward but she really was a nightmare. We only see one side of the story.
I assume the US is the same with risk assessment as we are in the UK with hospitals. When you see someone shaking someone who is pretty much on life support because they're irate it changes your view.

I don't condone the police being so heavy handed though.

cheesyboy · 31 Jan 2018 at 18:55

Screeeech said:
I don't know if you've spent much time in the US in places like LA or SF, but the amount of people with mental health issues just roaming around is pretty eye opening, our company has apartments in Santa Monica, and every other morning I'd open the door - and there'd be people just in a daze, or laying down not 1 or 2 - but all over the place, completely lost souls, it was almost as though a mental asylum had opened it's doors and let them all out.

There's nothing for them, no services, no help, no support at all, so they just roam the streets half dead, it's really weird - especially in somewhere like Santa Monica where there's a lot of money, palm tree lined streets, expensive apartments and well-to-do young professionals attending over-priced pilates classes, to see wrecked mental patients roaming around among them is just bizarre.

For me the main problem with these people, is that due to their very nature (shambling around, making noise, associations with drugs and alcohol etc) is that they're dealt with by the criminal system, when they should really be dealt with by a health system of some sort, but I guess that's impossible to do in the US.

Saw a stat the other day that there are 54,000 homeless people in LA County. LA County has population of about 10mil, so more than 0.5% (1 in ~190) of the population lives on the streets. Incredible