Looking at my blog notes (I keep a Word file with notes on various things I read or think about that are potentially bloggable) I have a serious backlog of topics to bog about. Most of them, sadly are pretty serious and will take some thought and research which will take time, which is, of course, in seriously short supply right now.
In the queue:
Racism and racialism in the 21st century
Privacy and community
Equality and fairness
The heartland vs. the coasts
Policing the modern city
Some thoughts on the nature of property.
But I wanted to comment on and help publicize in some small way something I saw on Bill Quicks blog.
Cobb County and Marietta police arrested a surgeon in the emergency room of WellStar Kennestone hospital, resulting in the death of 16-year-old soccer player, according to a lawsuit filed last week.
Brad Dalton of Marietta died Sept. 30, 2001, from a brain injury he received while playing soccer. He was rushed to the hospital where neurosurgeon Dr. Daniel Moore was paged to report to the hospital for emergency surgery.
The doctor never made it to the operating table because police chose to arrest him in the emergency room on charges he fled a parking lot fender-bender, the lawsuit states.
If you want to understand why it is that were suspicious of TIA and other efforts by our government to protect us, its exactly because of events like this.
First, if it my kid, I wouldnt be suing
Id be in restraints somewhere after getting medieval on more than a few peoples asses.
But in a world where common sense doesnt get issued along with a badge and a gun, maybe we ought to be thinking more about how to get some common sense down into the ranks along with all the sophisticated computer equipment.
this is a death that is almost unbearably sad. (I initially wrote “an unbearably sad story”, but story seemed too trivial a word). In facing these kinds of tragedies, I think many of us are consoled by faith in a higher power, albeit in a world of often capricious cruelty and indifference. How do you console yourself, AL?
Less emotionally, it doesn’t seem to me a story about government, per se, but a story about an organization that teaches “Your job is to follow the rules and execute orders. end of story.” versus an organization that teaches “Your job is to keep the peace and render justice, and ultimately to *serve your fellow human beings* Usually following the rules is the right way to do that, but sometimes it’s not, and we trust and require you to use your judgment”
This story, as sad as it is, illustrates perfectly the distinction between a society of laws and a society of men. The judgment of the police is, of course, only to be extended to areas that the advocate for the deceased wishes, and not to, say, rousting loiterers.
A society where the citizenry has sufficient virtú to entrust the police with discretionary power, to examine its use, and to swiftly and effectively punish its misuse, can be imagined. But that is not this one.
John–
No free society has any choice but to entrust its police with substantial discretion. Absent a huge suveillence machinery and a snitch culture within the police force, every cop HAS substantial discretion, whether we want them to or not. No one will see them failing to make an arrest in most cases; no one will know whether they could have prevented a crime with a well-timed stop-and-frisk; no one can force them out of their patrol cars to talk with the kids on the corner.
The decision NOT to act–by not checking out the suspicious guy on the corner–is actually more important in the grand scheme of things than the decision TO act, since much police work isn’t about serving warrants, but rather acting on hunches. If we don’t offer our cops discretion combined with community and legal support, we will face much worse crime. Just ask the residents of poor minority areas where police prefer doing nothing to being called racist by opportunistic demagogues.
As a generally anti-government libertarian, I’m ready to acknowledge that we need lots of rules to restrain those we entrust with power. But we shouldn’t confuse ideological correctness with practical success. Natural discretion will always exist, so we should be working with it and helping cops to make good choices, not claiming that our society is so flawed that all hope is forlorn.
Yes, the police should have discretion – and the ones that turn out to be idiots should be fired. In this case, the idiot’s superiors should be fired too. Either they were following rigid procedures – which makes their commander a dangerous idiot – or the officer in charge should have been rejected before he finished training and was allowed out on the streets by himself, let alone in charge of even one other officer – which also implies their superiors were incompetent.
I would be interested in a little mind game, here.
Presume the cop got on his cell phone and called the hospital to confirm the doc’s story.
In what month would he have gotten the answer?
Have you ever tried dealing with a hospital? Even if the doc had the number of the emergency room, the phone would have been answered by a jumped-up high school dropout suffering from delusions of grandeur because of the privilege to wear $1.98 scrubs and who would dearly love to argue with anybody not of the Medical Profession.
Should the cop have taken the doc to the hospital with the threat that if it didn’t turn out to be as advertised additional penalties were on order?
Just flat let the doc go on the doc’s unsupported word?
It appears the cop screwed up, but if you had to put this problem into the training manual, what would you have as the school solution?
I have fianly found a site that deals with this topic. i was friends with the 16 who passed away. i can remember being at the hospital and how the doctors kept coming beack and tellin –
he is ok
he is bad we’re going to fix him
he passed away
I was very confussed by all this and when i heard the story about the doctor being arrested for a hit and run and learned more of the details i was so incredibly hurt that ourt goverment, our police, who are payed to protect life can so easily take it. there should have be a way to stop them from doing what they did. we as a paople must make sure that some thing as horrible as this can and will NEVER happen agian