Saturday, October 17, 2009

James wrote about the problems of fingerprinting

some people:
If it was a bad night they would actually try to physically attack me or the arresting officer as soon as the cuffs came off.
which reminded me of something. Guy who used to dispatch in another office, back in my dispatch days, was an EMT. and some news report reminded him of a year-old(at that time) incident. They'd been called to the scene of a fight; guy had jumped a couple of others and gotten whacked fairly hard. They didn't pay much attention to the "That guy is NUTS!!" warning from the people, though as he was still combative the cops put a handcuff on one wrist and locked the other end to the gurney. And were following them to the hospital.

"About halfway there this guy raises his head and looks at me and says "I am Satan." I said that's cool, and then he repeated it. I mean, his eyes looked weird. And he raised his hand to point and the cuff stopped him, and he just looked at it. And then started pulling up.

And he didn't stop pulling. He wasn't breathing hard, just that weird look and the chain was so tight I was getting worried. So I told the driver to get ready to stop and edged down to the back to the extinguisher. And then he did it; he broke the fuckin' chain! And sat up. I yelled "STOP!" and sprayed him with the extinguisher, then threw open the door and jumped out.

The cops were right behind us, they almost hit us, and I landed on the hood. They jumped out and I yelled "He's loose!" They hit the back just as the guy got to the door, and it took all four of us to get him back on the gurney and cuffed, both hands and both feet. One of the cops rode with me 'cause this guy kept trying to break loose.

We got him into the emergency room and this doctor came in and said "Why is this man handcuffed?" Cop says "Because he's dangerous and kept fighting." "I will not have a patient handcuffed, take them off!" So the cop took the cuff key off his keyring, tossed it to the doctor and said "I'll be back for the key later" and we all left."

He didn't know, and I've always wondered if the doc realized just what he had before he started turning the key.

No comments: