LAPD officers arrested and charged Roryce Dirden, an EMT, with Assault after a patient he was treating in an ambulance for seizures, unstrapped herself from a stretcher and he pulled her back up on it for her own safety.
Mr. Dirden was arrested after the LAPD officer riding in the ambulance with him radioed PD that he had assaulted the patient.
When the DA's office viewed that police officer's body cam footage they determined that Mr. Dirden had done nothing wrong and did not file charges.
When the DA's office viewed that police officer's body cam footage they determined that Mr. Dirden had done nothing wrong and did not file charges.
It says everything that a police officer could look at an EMT in a blue uniform in an ambulance treating a patient in an emergency situation and see someone committing a crime.
But this is the lens through which cops see Black men.
But this is the lens through which cops see Black men.
This also isn't about helping the patient. Cause if the cop was about that he'd make sure she was on the stretcher and safe. Instead he's on his radio and making sure the ambulance gets pulled over like it's a hijacked vehicle.
It's all about arresting Mr. Dirden.
It's all about arresting Mr. Dirden.
Who knows how much this delayed the patient getting to hospital and how much trauma this caused her (if you listen to the story, she had apparently been the victim of a sexual assault).
If police are supposed to protect public safety, then there is nothing that could more demonstrate the opposite than arresting an EMT, who is treating a traumatized patient while they are on their way to hospital in an ambulance, for doing nothing wrong.
So then we are left with nothing to explain this except that police & the criminal legal system function to oppress Black & Brown people. Even if that means some other unintended targets, like ambulance patients or people in cars on a Florida highway, end up collateral damage.
PS The other crazy thing about this is that police officers treat sick and traumatized people with such casual brutality all the time, so just the idea that this cop would even read this as assault is mind boggling.
PPS Correction: Police officer in ambulance was White woman not White man.
