A mother whose son was having a seizure in his Tennessee apartment said in a federal lawsuit that police and paramedics subjected the 23-year-old to “inhumane acts of violence” instead of treating him, then covered up their use of deadly force.
The death of Austin Hunter Turner was one of more than 1,000 nationally that an investigation led by The Associated Press identified as happening after police officers used physical force or weapons that were supposed to stop, but not kill, people.
The lawsuit, filed this week in federal court, came after AP reporters shared police body-camera video they had unearthed with Turner’s parents, who didn’t know it existed. That footage made the family doubt the official conclusion that a drug overdose killed their son.
Citing the AP’s reporting and many of the details it disclosed, the lawsuit focused on how officers’ own video contradicted the police version of what happened inside Turner’s small apartment in the northeastern Tennessee city of Bristol.
My late godson was epileptic. Many years ago, he was working at a local theater selling candy and popcorn. He was the only one behind the counter and the manager was selling tickets up front. A woman walked up to the manager and complained that his worker, my godson, was on drugs or something and she wanted to buy popcorn. He was having a seizure but the clueless woman decided he must be on drugs. But she was just some clueless Karen.
Now, I tell that story to demonstrate that most people don’t understand seizure disorders. I could understand, maybe (big maybe) if the cops didn’t understand. But how could the paramedics be so clueless? They were called for a medical issue. The mother, at the scene, told them he was having a seizure. Why were the cops there at all?
I have heard of people experiencing the disordered cognition after a stroke being labelled as ‘drunk and disorderly’, and being detained without medical intervention. Sometimes their lack of ability to follow orders leads to them being assaulted by criminals, sorry, the ‘reasonable use of force’ by a ‘police officer’.
Same happens with diabetic people with low blood sugar. In fact, a case like that led to the Graham ruling where a guy was having an insulin reaction so he went into a store to buy orange juice. He saw that the line was too long so he left the store and went back to his friend’s car. A nearby officer thought he seemed a bit off and decided to investigate. Obviously a diabetic with low blood sugar is going to have some problems answering questions and following orders so he was handcuffed and roughed up. That led the Supreme Court to rule on reasonable use of force. Now courts would look at whether a reasonable officer would make a similar decision to use force. The previous test was whether the use of force was malicious which was an even worse test. Unfortunately despite the new test, the court did not find for Graham.
A friend who was a union hvac worker and diabetic got fired and blackballed for being “on drugs” at work once…he had low blood sugar that day.
Hypoglycemia is no joke, shit sets in fast. Bright eyed and wide awake one moment, slurred speach and struggling the next.
Honestly I blame tv for giving people the wrong idea when it comes to seizures. Everyone has this image of a person failing widely and dangerously but that really isn’t how most seizures play out. I can understand not recognizing one if you’ve never seen it before but once you’ve seen one there’s no excuse. The medics on this scene should have known what was happening, no excuse there. They should have their certifications revoked.