Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-07-12
STUPIDITY OF POLICE
Responsible for Many Deaths
in New York.
SURGEONS NO BETTER
SUNSTROKE VICTIMS MISTAKEN
FOR COMMON DRINKS.
Every Sudden Collapse on Street At
tributed to Excessive Use of
Alcohol
Of The Evening Star.

Special Correspondence Of The Evening Star.
NEW YORK. July ii, 1902.
Because of the way they have Of hand
ling sunstroke cases in this town, the indi-
vidual who falls to the street, stricken with
that affiction over here, has small
chance for life. 1t should be understood
that it is the commonly accepted View
of this population. including the hospital
elements thereof, that any man or wo-
man found prone upon the street must
be and of right ought to be drunk.
There can be no other reason for the
proneness. That any one of a Thousand
other physical reasons why a person should
suddenly fall to the street should hold or
carry in the case of the New Yorker thus
attacked never appears to enter the
minds of most residents, including those
who charged with the solemn re-
sponsibilty of caring for such stricken
persons. If one has an epileptic fit on the
streets of New York. it is about ten to
one that he will be yanked into a patrol
wagon, or. in rare cases. ambulance,
upon the off hand presumption that he is
drunker than piper. If after dark some
mercenary and low-browed individual pro-
vided with sand bag sinks up behind
pedestrian and effectually cracks his skull
the passers-by and the policemen sum-
moned by them will evince no hesitation
at all in pronouncins the unfortunate so
far gone in drunkenness that he don't
know his name and number"
Dangers of the Metropolis.
1t is about as dangerous thing as one
can do to become suddenly unaware of
| himself under any circumstances on the
thoroughfares of New York. BY so doing
he Immediately puts himself under the
dnnic suspicion of advanced alcoholism.
And when he falls under this suspicion he
has every chance in life to quickly land
either in a wretched police cell or in an
alcoholic ward of hospital. the latter,
carried on in New York, containing more
of the elements of horror than De Quincy
or Dante ever dreamed of.
During the short hot spell in New York
last week no less than eleven unfortunate
| men. some of them of quite good station in
| life. and all CT them of perfectly obvious
| responsibility. who had been stricken
the streets by the sun. were subjected to
this all-embracing diagnosis of drunken
ness. Such being the case. most of them
| died. 1t is needless to say. They did not
get the treatment that sunstroke patients
| SO imperatively need and quickly, but were
pulled and hauled around in police cells.
and dosed occasionally with the doses OF
bromide that diShed out to alcoholics
at the police stations over here. and the re-
| suit. of course. was that they succumbed.
| around in the course of time and they tes-
| titled in every case that the victims were
| either total abstainers from alcohol. or else
| persons who used alcohol with the very
! greatest caution.
| There is a deep and growing resentment
| among the thoughtful and humane people
| of this town over the offhand methods of
police and hospital attendants in their
handling of stricken people at all seasons
| of the year. 1t would make gruesome read
| ing to recount only short list of the in
| cidents wherein perfectly decent men and
women have died miserably in police cells
| who. suffering from fractured skulls and
other casualties gained not in any wise
| through their own fault have been blandly
| left to recover from their jags."
An Instance in Point.
A most narrowing case of this sort hap
| pened only a very short time ago. An
| elderly Brooklyn woman. known all over
| her Brooklyn district for her sweetness of
| nature and charitableness of heart. a wo-
| man who had reared large family of
| children. came over to New York to visit
| one of her married daughters. She had
| had more less trouble with her heart
for number of years. and on this occa-
| sion the excitement and the pulling and
! hauling of the unspeakable bridge crush
| set her heart to fiuttering dangerously.
| She kept on her way, however. and had got
within only two squares of her daughter
| home. when she fell to the street. quite I'M
| conscious. The policeman who came along
| gazed haughtily at the prone corpulent wo-
| man. whose upturned face had become
| flushed with her trouble and with the heat
| of the day poked at her with his club and
commented humorously to the pasSers-Dy
| who walked up upon the mightiness of ''the
| old girls jag" However, he did summon
| an ambulance from a nearby hospital. The
| notwithstanding young hospital surgeon
who hoped off the rear seat bent the most
| cursory gaze upon the stricken woman
| and in short phrase confirmed the big po-
liceman'S diagnosis
| We're not taking runks to the hospital"
he said to the policeman. Shovel the old
| party into a patrol wagon and let her
| sleep it off in cell. She'll come around
| all right in few hours
Died in Police Station Cell.
| And that is exactly what was done,
whereas a bit of dgitalis. to which it was
| afterward discovered the elderly Brooklyn
| woman had generally had recourse during
| her attacks of heart trouble. or any other
| commonly known treatment for heart trou
| BILE, would have brought her to and en-
| abled her to live. perhaps, for many years.
She was brutally thrust into a patrol
wagon slammed into a mean cell and died
| on a hard plank about two hours later.
| without ever recovering CONSCIOUSNESS.
| There seems to have been not the-sightest
doubt in life that the rough treatment to
| which she had been subjected was in great
part the cause of her death.
The only bright and pleasing feature In
| connection with the case consists In the
| fact that one Of the dead woman's brawny
| and Infatuated sons made 1t his particular
| business, some three days after his mothers
death, to almost beat the neglectful police
man to death with the latter's own club,
| that he sought out the young hospital sur
! geon and pounded him into sorry pulp.
| and that the ma gistrate before whom he
was taken, a man as just as he is eccentric,
| z.J,- live IA = m .
| whatever upon the young man after he had
heard all of the circumstances Of the case.
1t is difficult to analyze the spirit of a
town in which one is not at least granted
| the right to be taken i'll on the street with
| out being subjected to the imminent dam
| ger of a police cell and quite possible death.