Officers Criticized
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By -
A few persons who work for the Warsaw Police Dept. seem to have forgotten the meaning.
Early on Oct. 21, I was driving my grandchild to the hospital and going too fast. I put on my turn signal as soon as I saw the flashing lights behind me and pulled over at the safest spot. An officer approached the car, and I told him that I knew that I was speeding, and had a very ill child in the back and would he follow me to the hospital and give me a ticket there. The answer was "No, I don't follow anyone." I repeatedly asked him to let me go to the hospital with this frightened, fever-stricken, croupy, stridorous, autistic child whose custodial parent was hospitalized with meningitis. Of course, parental consent for treatment might be a really good idea!
When telling the officer that I was going to drive through the intersection (U.S. 30 and the BP Station) where I could see the hospital from, he stated that I would be arrested and taken to jail if I did so, and told me to get out of the car. I got out and was handcuffed. While I am fearing that my grandchild is going to go from distress to failure, the officer in his infinite wisdom decided that lecturing me about calling EMS instead was more important than getting this kid to the hospital, then decided to call EMS.
They came, checked the child, and knowing that if he got more frightened - as in being taken by strangers in an ambulance and away from grandma was likely to make him cry and make his breathing pattern even worse - decided that I should be the one to drive the child to the hospital with them behind me.
Eventually, I was out of handcuffs and presented with a warning for speeding and a ticket for failure to yield to a moving emergency vehicle. The officer had, meantime, taken my keys and they were nowhere to be found. When I told him to find my keys because I still had the same problem - an ill child that they had delayed treatment of and needed to get to the hospital - I was told, "It's not too late for me to arrest you." My words were "For what, not saying please?"
After much fumbling, searching my front and back seat, looking in the grass, their vehicles and checking his pockets a few times, miraculously my keys appeared in the floorboard of the back seat! Oh yes, both officers snickered that going to court about the traffic ticket was just overtime for them. (Not how I would like to see my tax money spent.)
The time on the ticket was 12:26, and the time the child was triaged was 00:53 - that is 27 minutes of very valuable time wasted and treatment of an ill child delayed. The child got a breathing treatment and steroid injection at Kosciusko Community Hospital.
The biggest insult was the lack of any common sense and obstructing me from getting treatment for the child. I really thought that the police helped you when a child was ill or injured. Where are we living? It isn't the same country that I grew up in. How am I supposed to, with any faith at all, tell my grandchildren that policemen are their friends? The immediate superior of these officers told me that they were acting within their rights. No response from Warsaw's chief of police. Perhaps it is their right to detain a dangerous granny, and endanger a child. But in the name of common sense and decency, I think not!
Barbara (Kelley) Dunfee
Columbia City[[In-content Ad]]
A few persons who work for the Warsaw Police Dept. seem to have forgotten the meaning.
Early on Oct. 21, I was driving my grandchild to the hospital and going too fast. I put on my turn signal as soon as I saw the flashing lights behind me and pulled over at the safest spot. An officer approached the car, and I told him that I knew that I was speeding, and had a very ill child in the back and would he follow me to the hospital and give me a ticket there. The answer was "No, I don't follow anyone." I repeatedly asked him to let me go to the hospital with this frightened, fever-stricken, croupy, stridorous, autistic child whose custodial parent was hospitalized with meningitis. Of course, parental consent for treatment might be a really good idea!
When telling the officer that I was going to drive through the intersection (U.S. 30 and the BP Station) where I could see the hospital from, he stated that I would be arrested and taken to jail if I did so, and told me to get out of the car. I got out and was handcuffed. While I am fearing that my grandchild is going to go from distress to failure, the officer in his infinite wisdom decided that lecturing me about calling EMS instead was more important than getting this kid to the hospital, then decided to call EMS.
They came, checked the child, and knowing that if he got more frightened - as in being taken by strangers in an ambulance and away from grandma was likely to make him cry and make his breathing pattern even worse - decided that I should be the one to drive the child to the hospital with them behind me.
Eventually, I was out of handcuffs and presented with a warning for speeding and a ticket for failure to yield to a moving emergency vehicle. The officer had, meantime, taken my keys and they were nowhere to be found. When I told him to find my keys because I still had the same problem - an ill child that they had delayed treatment of and needed to get to the hospital - I was told, "It's not too late for me to arrest you." My words were "For what, not saying please?"
After much fumbling, searching my front and back seat, looking in the grass, their vehicles and checking his pockets a few times, miraculously my keys appeared in the floorboard of the back seat! Oh yes, both officers snickered that going to court about the traffic ticket was just overtime for them. (Not how I would like to see my tax money spent.)
The time on the ticket was 12:26, and the time the child was triaged was 00:53 - that is 27 minutes of very valuable time wasted and treatment of an ill child delayed. The child got a breathing treatment and steroid injection at Kosciusko Community Hospital.
The biggest insult was the lack of any common sense and obstructing me from getting treatment for the child. I really thought that the police helped you when a child was ill or injured. Where are we living? It isn't the same country that I grew up in. How am I supposed to, with any faith at all, tell my grandchildren that policemen are their friends? The immediate superior of these officers told me that they were acting within their rights. No response from Warsaw's chief of police. Perhaps it is their right to detain a dangerous granny, and endanger a child. But in the name of common sense and decency, I think not!
Barbara (Kelley) Dunfee
Columbia City[[In-content Ad]]
Have a news tip? Email [email protected] or Call/Text 360-922-3092