Airport tragedy

[diggitydot]

Re: Airport tragedy

Another new tidbit of information just came on the local news. Now they're saying she was alone and/or unsupervised for 6-8 minutes while in that holding cell.

[DCJenn]

Re: Airport tragedy

I think what this has done is to remind people that not everyone in the airport is an asshole on purpose. Sometimes, they're just sick/mentally ill/addicts/experiencing family tragedy, etc.

Jenn

PS- one of my guys w/ Prader-Willi Syndrome got arrested panhandling in the Nashville airport. His jackass dad wouldn't spring for a direct flight. Fantastic. Hmmm, let's let the developmentally disabled guy obsessed w/ food wander the Nashville Airport for two hours. The VERY KIND airport police held onto him until his flight once I explained the situation.

Re: Airport tragedy

And I know it's inflammatory to say but I wonder if her husband didn't go BECAUSE he knew she was suicidal. If he was tired of putting up with her disease, and this was cheaper than divorce since she comes from a well-known family

I agree with most of that and suggested it previously with not knowing what state their family was in. It isn't an excuse but I know that I don't like to spend much time with an alcoholic and might have been feeling a huge sense of relief to drop off her at the curb and high-tail it out of there. Again, I don't think that excuses her being alone. One other quick thought on this, from my limited experience, some alcoholics are really good liars ("some" being enough to label it as a trait) as a way to maintain their addiction and also make half-hearted attempts to appease family members. And they know exactly what to say -- I'm going to be sober starting right now with this plane trip.

I don't think the rehab place will say boo about this but I still wonder what they recommend for patients who are traveling by air to their facility. Did they make a recommendation and did the family ignore it? Anyone with a layover is going to pass a bar. No pick up at the Phoenix airport? Or an escort from the Phoenix gate on, at the least? (If they did have that, why not use it?)

Still, she was alone for whatever reason or failing on the part of her family. Once the police restrained her, someone should have been keeping a closer eye on her.

[diggitydot]

Re: Airport tragedy

Handcuffs and shackles are mechanical restraints. Look it up if you don't believe me.

It has nothing to do with "believing" you. I'm just as fully capable of understanding basic English definitions as the next. But there's a significant difference between medical restraints, which is what I think some people are referring to when talking about specific training regimens they've gone through, than from those typically used by law enforcement. Yes, they occasionally overlap, but there is normally a significant difference between the two. And when they do overlap, the law agencies SOP's differ from the norm, too.

If she was under medical restraints and left alone for a significant period of time then I'd be on the "let's-blame-the-cops" bandwagon just as much as anyone else. But that isn't the case. She was left alone for less than 10 minutes in common handcuffs and shackles, just like every other person in holding cells there.

Law enforcement officers didn't receive any information from outside sources about her mental health and addiction issues until an hour after she'd been found dead. At what point should they have known she was having a breakdown versus simply throwing a hissy fit? Law enforcement officers are not trained mental health professionals with the ability to identify every mentally ill person they come into contact with. They do as best they can with the information available to them, AT THE TIME. That's all any of us can do. They weren't around this woman long enough to see if she that she was mentally unstable. The short time they observed her, they simply thought she was pissed off at the airline's refusal to return the plane and walk way so she could board. That doesn't set off my "wow, she's obviously mental" alarms. More likely the "wow, someone is seriously self-absorbed" alarm.

I'm sorry, but the cops were doing their job. Just like they've done a billion times before. If this poor, unfortunate woman was even borderline too mentally unstable to travel by herself, she shouldn't have been traveling by herself and certainly not in a high-enforcement environment like an airport.

I think it's exceedingly cruel to any mentally impaired individual to make them fly alone when there are layovers involved. Particularly someone with addiction issues who might be prone to panic attacks. (Seriously, who doesn't foresee them hitting the airport bar if left to their own devices?) Even if just marginally impaired...you just never know when something might happen. And with the mentally ill, it often does happen at the least opportune moment.

[diggitydot]

Re: Airport tragedy

Just because you are emotionally unstable doesn't mean you deserve to die.

Just because you're emotionally unstable doesn't mean that the cops should be sued by your family because you kill yourself, either.

[diggitydot]

Re: Airport tragedy

Even if just marginally impaired...you just never know when something might happen. And with the mentally ill, it often does happen at the least opportune moment.

Precisely. Possibily even in less than 10 minutes.

Which is why her family, who were the only ones aware of her mental health issues, should have ensured someone was with her at all times throughout her trip.

[lilponygirl]

Re: Airport tragedy

:fight: Not that this is a laughing matter by any means, but you two are cracking me up.

[madeintaiwan]

Re: Airport tragedy

Handcuffs and shackles are mechanical restraints. Look it up if you don't believe me.

It has nothing to do with "believing" you. I'm just as fully capable of understanding basic English definitions as the next. But there's a significant difference between medical restraints, which is what I think some people are referring to when talking about specific training regimens they've gone through, than from those typically used by law enforcement. Yes, they occasionally overlap, but there is normally a significant difference between the two. And when they do overlap, the law agencies SOP's differ from the norm, too.

If she was under medical restraints and left alone for a significant period of time then I'd be on the "let's-blame-the-cops" bandwagon just as much as anyone else. But that isn't the case. She was left alone for less than 10 minutes in common handcuffs and shackles, just like every other person in holding cells there.

Law enforcement officers didn't receive any information from outside sources about her mental health and addiction issues until an hour after she'd been found dead. At what point should they have known she was having a breakdown versus simply throwing a hissy fit? Law enforcement officers are not trained mental health professionals with the ability to identify every mentally ill person they come into contact with. They do as best they can with the information available to them, AT THE TIME. That's all any of us can do. They weren't around this woman long enough to see if she that she was mentally unstable. The short time they observed her, they simply thought she was pissed off at the airline's refusal to return the plane and walk way so she could board. That doesn't set off my "wow, she's obviously mental" alarms. More likely the "wow, someone is seriously self-absorbed" alarm.

I'm sorry, but the cops were doing their job. Just like they've done a billion times before. If this poor, unfortunate woman was even borderline too mentally unstable to travel by herself, she shouldn't have been traveling by herself and certainly not in a high-enforcement environment like an airport.

I think it's exceedingly cruel to any mentally impaired individual to make them fly alone when there are layovers involved. Particularly someone with addiction issues who might be prone to panic attacks. (Seriously, who doesn't foresee them hitting the airport bar if left to their own devices?) Even if just marginally impaired...you just never know when something might happen. And with the mentally ill, it often does happen at the least opportune moment.

Maybe this is how they roll in AZ but it's not how they roll everywhere else. And if this is the expectations of law enforcement in the wonderful state of AZ, I have yet another reason why I never want to live there.

Personally when I am talking about physical restraints I am talking about prones, basket-holds, wall restraints, quiet room (a room the size of a bathroom that has a door with a magnet strip that is locked by holding down a button). I endured many many hours over many many days of training in order to properly determine when a restraint was necessary, which restraint to use in a particular situation, how to properly administer the restraint, when and how to properly end the restraint, and how to properly write out the 9+ page report detailing the events leading up to the restraint, a timed description of the restraint, and how the restraint ended. And law enforcement go through plenty of training and are taught to understand the severity and consequences of using restraints and force (hand cuffs, pepper spray, ect). During their training every person in the academy experiences all the restraints that they will use as law enforcement including being sprayed in the face with pepper spray. And law enforcements are trained in mental health. At least the ones I know who work in various regions in CA are. Most branches intentionally hire people out of college with psychology backgrounds for this purpose. Whether they have a background in mental health or not, law enforcement's job is to properly assess the situtation and act appropriately. This includes assessing the mental state of that person. I don't care what field you work in (law enforcement, mental health, medicine) you just don't put your hands or restraints on or chemincals into someone without being properly trained to do so and once you decide to do any of these things you better be available to monitor the person until the come out of it because the powers that be who ends up reading the pages and pages and pages and pages of paperwork that is required after you restrain someone (physical, chemical, straight jacket, hand cuffs) is going to wonder why you left that person unsupervised after administering a restraint.