Jailing kids for profit

All of your statements about how the situation went down are contested; the deputies visit, the nurses interview, the suicide threat.
Probably the stripping of the woman would also be contested if it hadn't been filmed.
What I find upsetting is that the police are called to assist a woman in distress (who may have been drinking in her own home) who claims to have been assaulted. They arrive, they turn off their cameras, a gang of pervs, including men, strip off her clothes, stare at her vagina, leave her naked for six hours, while she's screaming in obvious outrage and terror. You don't think there's a reason why every fucking single 'civilized' country in the world bans people from the opposite gender doing strip searches?
You're a fucking enabler. I swear, sometimes I post stories like this because they're so obviously disgusting, that I hope that even people I normally disagree with can reach some bridge of common humanity. It shits me no end that every time I do this I am shocked to discover that there are people who can't see a problem with my story.
I can't be bothered going into what should be FUCKING OBVIOUS about why this is a FUCKING CRIME. And why if this is happening to this woman, who is merely a tiny tip of a huge iceberg that includes at least five other women from this police office, and more generally prostitutes, minorities and other disenfranchised women across the country, it speaks to the inhumanity of many people who are given legal power over normal citizens.

I think this quote is apt:

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Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.
Frederick Douglass

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Originally posted by Malacasta
All of your statements about how the situation went down are contested; the deputies visit, the nurses interview, the suicide threat.
Probably the stripping of the woman would also be contested if it hadn't been filmed.
What I find upsetting is that the police are called to assist a woman in distress (who may have been drinking in her own home) who claims to have been assaulted. They arrive, they turn off their cameras, a gang of pervs, including men, strip off her clothes, stare at her vagina, leave her naked for six hours, while she's screaming in obvious outrage and terror. You don't think there's a reason why every fucking single 'civilized' country in the world bans people from the opposite gender doing strip searches?
You're a fucking enabler. I swear, sometimes I post stories like this because they're so obviously disgusting, that I hope that even people I normally disagree with can reach some bridge of common humanity. It shits me no end that every time I do this I am shocked to discover that there are people who can't see a problem with my story.
I can't be bothered going into what should be FUCKING OBVIOUS about why this is a FUCKING CRIME. And why if this is happening to this woman, who is merely a tiny tip of a huge iceberg that includes at least five other women from this police office, and more generally prostitutes, minorities and other disenfranchised women across the country, it speaks to the inhumanity of many people who are given legal power over normal citizens.

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I was tempted to heavily edit your post, but I will settle for this:

You need to take a deep breath. Jyn provided well constructed commentary that called into question the verifiability of the facts at hand, and your response is simply to start calling people with dissenting opinions "fucking enablers", labeling the police a "gang of pervs", inventing and then exaggerating the series of events, and generally just getting bent at everybody.

The woman was drunk and uncooperative. She was put on suicide watch. She was given the option to remove her own clothes, but seemed far too incoherent to understand what was happening. Belaboring the "strip search" terminology is pointless redundancy - there wasn't one. Her clothes were removed to prevent her from doing harm to herself.

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Originally posted by Malacasta
All of your statements about how the situation went down are contested; the deputies visit, the nurses interview, the suicide threat.
Probably the stripping of the woman would also be contested if it hadn't been filmed.

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And every single statement you've made in both posts is also contested/a matter of opinion. What is your point? I know I'm at least speaking from a point of view with actual knowledge of police proceedings and practices. Are you? As far as I can tell, your reaction is purely emotional and contains no actual, rational thought.

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Originally posted by Malacasta

What I find upsetting is that the police are called to assist a woman in distress (who may have been drinking in her own home) who claims to have been assaulted.

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...and was arrested for the reasons I mentioned. At least 1 definitely, the others probably. The fact that she was assaulted does not mean she did nothing wrong and did not deserve to be arrested. We do not have all the details, but the grand jury did. The grand jury did not find the officers guilty, so we are going to have to assume (yes, assume) that, based on the verdict, Mrs. Steffey was the one in the wrong.

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Originally posted by Malacasta

They arrive, they turn off their cameras, a gang of pervs, including men, strip off her clothes, stare at her vagina, leave her naked for six hours, while she's screaming in obvious outrage and terror.

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Every bit of this is conjecture. Turn off their cameras? There may or may not have been a reason for that. It may or may not have even happened at all in that way. Again, the grand jury knows.

Gang of pervs? Staring at her vagina? That entire stripping was completely professional. She was hysterical and obviously uncooperative. Force was necessary. There was no inappropriate or deviant touching. No one said, "Oh, man. Look at that. I'd love to get me a piece of that." Being naked is far from the worst thing in the world. Being naked in front of other people is far from the worst thing in the world. She was not sexually assaulted, get over it.

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Originally posted by Malacasta

You don't think there's a reason why every fucking single 'civilized' country in the world bans people from the opposite gender doing strip searches?

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First off, this wasn't a strip search. It was suicide prevention. Gender is a moot issue. Secondly, a doctor advised it. She was left naked for 6 hours because she was deemed too dangerous to herself still. If you have a problem with the call, you'd have to take it up with the doctor. If there was any planned vagina ogling, it came from him/her. The police listened to the advice of a professional, and acted on the advice in a professional manner.

All that aside... ah yes, you're right. "Every fucking 'civilized' country in the world" also bans doctors of the opposite sex from seeing patients and... oh wait. Never mind. They don't. IMO, sex should not matter when law enforcement entities are performing their duties. It is a professional situation. Regardless of my opinion, it would have been an issue had it actually been considered a strip search, but that matter was already dealt with. What don't you get about the fact that the officers in the video were acting in a professional manner?

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Originally posted by Malacasta

You're a fucking enabler. I swear, sometimes I post stories like this because they're so obviously disgusting, that I hope that even people I normally disagree with can reach some bridge of common humanity.

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And you seem to simply be blindly anti-establishment. I mean really? You want to go back and forth like that? Come on. As far as reaching a 'bridge of common humanity' goes, do you really think I wouldn't want justice done if there was actual wrongdoing on the department's part? What I posted before was not enabling. It was offering a viewpoint (with more insight and a more personal perspective than your own, unless you care to contradict me on this) that differed from yours. It was offering a viewpoint purely based off of what we both saw in that video and read online. Those are our only sources of information. You saw horrible wrongdoing. I saw a normal, necessary police procedure.

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Originally posted by Malacasta

It shits me no end that every time I do this I am shocked to discover that there are people who can't see a problem with my story.
I can't be bothered going into what should be FUCKING OBVIOUS about why this is a FUCKING CRIME.

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What was shown in that tape in and of itself was not a crime. That is a fact you are going to have to accept, like it or not. A grand jury agreed, and that was with a lot more info than just a tape.

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Originally posted by Malacasta

And why if this is happening to this woman, who is merely a tiny tip of a huge iceberg that includes at least five other women from this police office...

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Big surprise. More women came forward. Do you immediately assume they're all telling the truth? They're not simply trying to get in on this or maybe even just trying to "help" Hope Steffey? Even if it turns out that every one of them actually was treated in similar fashion, strip searching and suicide prevention stripping happens. It's a part of police work. Of course it's going to have happened before.

If there *is* anything actually fishy going on in the department, you're going to have to start with the doctor who advised them to do this. You're also going to have to count on the unlikely occurrence that it was the same doctor who recommended this action for every one of those other women. Then, you'd work your way up from there.

Mal, I've got nothing against you, but you're simply going about this the wrong way. You can't believe that every single person who claims to be a victim is the actual victim. If this "bridge of common humanity" you wrote about actually existed, where do you think we'd be as a society? If everyone shared your views on such matters, things would completely fall apart. Institutions would crumble the moment anyone yelled, "Rape!", whether it's true or not. Calm yourself down and, if you feel like it, reply when you're not so emotionally charged.


EDIT:

I would just like to reiterate that every single fact and opinion I've posted are based purely off of what I've seen and read about in the currently available resources. We have different backgrounds, and therefore we have different views on what happened.

But who knows? Maybe they WILL look (or are looking) into the doctor who advised their actions. Maybe they WILL find that there is a horrible mess of despicable motives surrounding said doctor and/or the department. If that turns out to be the case, I will obviously eat every word I've posted here. I have no problem admitting my viewpoint may be wrong.

Malacasta, you need to be willing to acknowledge that you may be wrong about this as well. You need to be willing to eat your words if you're wrong. I do not think this has even occurred to you regarding this subject, so I am suggesting it... not only to maintain fairness and the spirit of "agreeing to disagree" that should exist on these boards, but also for your own peace of mind.

I think maybe you are shocked that people don't agree with your assessment of various stories because you lack worthwhile assessment capabilities.

You see horror and atrocity where every other person sees the arrest of an overly drunk woman who was probably assaulted. Her interactions with the cops resulted in her arrest. Is it enabling? Yes. It is enabling a law enforcement official to make a judgement in a situation to arrest the loudest, drunkest, likely most hostile and potentially physical person at the scene.

I admit to enabling my police officers to carry out their duties.


Moderator Note: Minor edit to remove, uh, wildly inflammatory language.

Let's leave aside the police for the moment. I am very troubled that a doctor would think it's at all helpful or appropriate for a suicidal woman to be left naked in a cell. I am willing to believe this is "normal" police policy for a suicide watch, but I still find it shocking, and I still don't see any ethical way a doctor could be involved. I'm not a doctor or mental health professional, but I haven't been able to find any evidence online that this is how mental health professionals normally treat suicidal patients.

I would also say, again leaving the police aside, a grand jury not indicting them doesn't mean the woman was guilty of anything. She could still be completely innocent, and the victim of a terrible experience, even if the police did nothing wrong.

I tend to think the problem is with the department's policy regarding potentially suicidal suspects, especially women. It's all fine and good to say women shouldn't react to forced nudity with such terror and trauma, as long as the person stripping them is a detached professional. No, being naked isn't the worst thing in the world. Yes, it is sexist and heteronormative to assume that a male officer would be less professional than his female colleague when dealing with a naked woman. However, we have to reflect the real world. Women are sexualised and victimised much more frequently by men, and American women live in a culture with a strong nudity taboo. It isn't unreasonable to expect male officers NOT to participate in this activity, whether it's a suicide strip, a strip search, or whatever you want to characterise it as. I would have thought most reasonable people would agree it would be a good idea if male officers weren't forcibly stripping female suspects a doctor has already identified as emotionally vulnerable.

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Originally posted by Graeblyn
Let's leave aside the police for the moment. I am very troubled that a doctor would think it's at all helpful or appropriate for a suicidal woman to be left naked in a cell. I am willing to believe this is "normal" police policy for a suicide watch, but I still find it shocking, and I still don't see any ethical way a doctor could be involved. I'm not a doctor or mental health professional, but I haven't been able to find any evidence online that this is how mental health professionals normally treat suicidal patients.

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General practice(at least in an institutional setting), from what I remember from school (I have a degree in Corrections), is that when a person is brought in, they are assessed by staff who are trained to assess a person's suicide risk, through use of a suicide risk assessment (I have both seen and done these, and they are certainly -not- something that someone could do without the proper educational training), and based on that assessment they are assigned a risk factor of small, medium or high risk for suicide.

At a medium or high risk for suicide, the person is secluded from everything. Their belongings, other people, clothing, and anything else that they may use to harm themselves. They are then put in a cell with a surveillance camera that is never supposed to be turned off, with nothing more than a bed, and an extremely heavy-weight, tear resistant fabric blanket and "gown" as seen HERE . The person is then placed on suicide watch for a minimum 12-24hrs, and until the institution's mental health professional can be brought in to further evaluate the person.

Bear in mind that the above mentioned comments are SOP for -institutions- and not a police station, though I would imagine that they would be similar. Why she was not given a gown, I cannot say.


EDIT: It is also SOP for institutions that unless it is -absolutely- necessary (due to a lack of available and appropriate personnel, though in those cases at least ONE member of the person's sex must be present), a female officer will NEVER partake in a search(strip or pat down) or clothing removal of a male, and vice-versa.

Here is a real (in my opinion) police abuse of power situation to be concerned about. Big difference in the way officers in each respective circumstance react proportional to the situation.

http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/s...ves/163025.asp

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Originally posted by Jyn
People watch these videos and get upset when they see such displays, but they are necessary to enforce the law.

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No they aren't.

I really wish more information was available about this, so I could have an informed opinion. Was it neccessary for male officers to be present? What evidence is there that she appeared to be suicidal? How about the rest of the video evidence?

I guess what I can say is that if that was by the book, the book needs to be rewritten. It really shouldn't have went down the way it did. The procedures Vidare described seem pretty reasonable. I guess it's possible that there were too few female officers available to handle it. But leaving her naked in a cell for 6 hours? That's ridiculous.