Comments by "PeterC" (@peterc4082) on "EWU Bodycam" channel.

It was a stupid call out. He was driving too fast. The victim who called 911 was not in cardiac arrest. Once in cardiac arrest you have 6 minutes before brain death or at least permaent brain damage. The guy was alive, speaking. The speed was too fast. The policy of this department was incorrect. We always have to judge our actions. If a cop has to drive fast he risks causing an accident with another vehicle or pedestrians. Secondly why are these cop cars so armoured. If you want to speed through a city, use a safer car which deforms more when the pedestrian hits it. Finally crossing roads and listening to loud music is dangerous. You can't hear the siren. Why isn't that outlawed?
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The problem: why do cops in the US drive these battering rams? In Europe such a car would not be allowed to speed this way in a city. Pedestrians will be hit especially if they listen to music or they are impaired. Why did the cop go so fast? Why does their department authorise such fast driving for non-cardiac arrest response? That junkie did not arrest. He was not dying while making that call. He didn't have 6 minutes before brain death. So plenty of wrong here and people focus on what some cop said instead of learning from this. Cop cars should be safer for pedestrians. Cops should not drive this fast for this type of call. Pedestrians must not cross streets while listening to music.
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What the cop said is real though. People are judged by their value. The video mentions she was a post grad student. What if she was a high school drop out? Would her life be less valuable. At heart the whole system judges peoples' worth. Why bring in her post grad student cred? Suppose she was a junkie? Or she was homeless? Or she was an ex con on parole? Would she be less valuable? All that is wrong here is tact. But people do lack tact when they speak to their friends. That's not enough to prosecute someone. In the medical field, you can't complain if your doctor is rude. You can only complain if you think they committed a professional or criminal error. Same here, rude cop. There are people like that. The question should rather be... why was the cop going so fast to reach a person who was speaking i.e. had a fuctional pulse and respiration? It wasn't someone in heart arrest. Secondly if people wear portable music, since walkman days we have that, people may not hear sirens. Do these cop cars have to be so armoured? He was driving a battering ram. I don't think such vehicles are allowed in Europe. Maybe on freeways but not in urban city areas.
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So much wrong here. First the drug user was ultimately responsible for this. Second, did the officer have to drive this fast? Probably not. A drug overdose victim who is conscious and speaking normally can wait a few minutes for the ambulance. It's not the same as maybe an active shooting or a cardiac arrest where someone is dead and needs CPR. These police vehicles are too tough for their job. Why did this car need to be so armoured? What's the NCAP rating of this car? And if you're going to drive these vehicles at speed they should have addition crumple zones because hitting pedestrians will occur sooner or later. The girl who was hit was listening to music. That's very dangerous. Should Apple be sued for this? Maybe. But if people listen to music and it's not illegal, then sooner or later emergency response vehicles will end up colliding with them. So maybe the speed was not appropriate. This may be an outdated policy this police force uses. All in all several things contributed here: Cops car, cops speed, cop's vision of the crossing, the view of the crossing for the pedestrian and the pedestrian listening to music which meant she did not hear the siren as well as she could have and the split second additional warning may have saved her life, the junkie who used the drugs, the response to the junkie and maybe other factors played a role. The cop who said she was a low value person was expressing the realities of what compensation would entail and likely she will not have good lawyers and she's not a brain surgeon or Elon Musk who would generate more in terms of lawsuit payment. It's sad but that's what life's about.
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@stvn55 Lots of cops use in the EU use smaller vehicles in such situations. I disagree with your assessment. 1. The junkie was not dying. There was no need to speed. Had the junkie been in cardiac arrest, google it mate, then it's 5- 6 minutes before permanent brain damage. There was a potential risk of the junkie arresting and when that happened it would be 5-6 minutes till brain injury. 2. He was speeding too fast. They mentioned 70mi/hr that's highly reckless in a built up partially obstructed setting. Being a cop does not mean you can speed recklessly. Certainly in Europe he'd not be allowed to speed this way if his view was obstructed and why is a cop speeding to a junkie? A junkie needs an ambulance, not a take down and handcuffs. 3. Portable music use is highly common, what's worse is that people even use sound isolating and noise cancelling earphones. So all in all a woman died, the cop is going to have PTSD, her family will be in a bad way and the drug OD made it without the cop. In every decision you have to ask two things. What are the dangers of action and what are the dangers of inaction. All in all the car was too big and driving too fast for an urban environment with many people in it with obstructions and everyone and their dog sporting noise cancelling sound isolating wireless earphones. I called the man a junkie but that's not to disrespect anyone. At the end stupid decisions caused the death of this innocent woman who was listening to music as millions of others do every day.
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@Niki_Hydn Thanks for your courteous response. Niki if the caller arrested, then and only then we'd have 5 minutes or so till start of permanent brain injury. The cop at best would be able to do CPR. That would help if highly effective but the ambulance would be able to stop the cardiac arrest with defibrillation and so on. The ambulance should have been the speeding vehicle. The risk here was POTENTIAL and not ACTUAL. Had the kid arrested, had his heart stopped as happens in VF/VT then every second counts. Secondly use of noise cancelling earphones is extremely common. Every department should plan for that. Also hearing impaired people exist. They won't hear the siren. Every time someone speeds through urban environments there is a serious risk of tragedy with terrible consequences. This case should case a public outcry and the police should show the scientific evidence why this guy was speeding. Not that the junkie's family would sue, but that the overall risk of problems (such as this death) is lower when speeding over so many mi/hr in such and such scenarios. Thanks. I'm not necessarily blaming the cop but the decision to order him to speed, his procedure manual is incorrect and should be revised. In the medical field we always consider our actions: FIRST DO NO HARM.
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@Niki_Hydn Glad your father was OK. Your dad was probably being resuscitated while in arrest which allowed for blood to be pumped to his brain. In this case the caller was not in cardiac arrest. As you know someone in cardiac arrest is unconscious. If they are speaking (they are breathing), they are making sense (the brain is well perfused), they are holding a phone etc... they are probably fine for the next few minutes at least, so there is no reason to go at breakneck speed to them as though they were already without a pulse and unconscious, effectively dead. The thing is that cardiac arrest is only a potential outcome in this case but going at very fast speed through a town full of people is super dangerous and he we saw a woman die and the 911 caller did not even arrest, he was treated by whatever EMS got to him, stabilised and transferred to an emergency department for observation. For me this case makes little sense. A cop could at best offer CPR but an ambulance with EMS can do much more. I don't know if these cops carry AEDs (automatic defib machines) but even so what would a few seconds difference make if an ambulance got to him vs the cop? Unless there were no ambulances at all, but still it would have been better for the 911 operator to keep the caller on the line and despatch the cop and only tell him to floor it if the caller started to collapse. Look this could have been either of us. We could have been out and crossing the street maybe not even listening to music, maybe a little drunk or maybe not even that, and bam out of the blue the cop gets you on the pedestrian crossing because maybe someone out there could arrest and then would need CPR. Thanks.
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@Niki_Hydn I think, maybe they needed the cop because the EMS crew needed the security first? Maybe that was it. At best what could the cop do? If the cop arrived and the caller was waiting outside the cop could frisk him for weapons, get his AED out (if he had one) and asked him to lie down on a flat surface, so if the man arrested he could just start chest compressions / or shock him with the AED. But that could wait a minute or two to justify a lower rate of speed given the obstructions in the area. The cop however would not be expected to make that call. That should have been determined by medical public health officials. Hence for me this is much bigger than some cop muttering something bad under his breath. It's the actual policy of this police department and emergency / 911 system. It seems to disregard the safety of pedestrians and other road users over potential but not necessary outcomes in callers. Thanks again, sorry for the wall of text.
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At the end of the day the guy who did the cocaine was responsible for this. Had he not done cocaine, the cop would not be rushing to save him. The crash was probably unavoidable. The victim was also wearing Apple airpods and listening to loud music reduces your situational awareness. It's very dangerous to do that while crossing streets unless you really have a good view of the street and can tell no vehicles are approaching. She would maybe have heard the siren earlier had she not been listening to music. The police remarks are sad but they're real. People do say stupid and cruel things sometimes however that's not what killed this poor woman in this case. Another thing: do these police vehicles have to be so armoured in front? If you're racing through city streets hitting pedestrians is likely given there is no law forbidding the listening of loud music and hearing or vision impaired people do exist. Maybe if the car had a better pedestrian collision safety rating the woman may not have died. Also, should cops drive this fast for a potential drug overdose? I can understand a cardiac arrest but maybe in potential cases when the drug victim is speaking on the phone it's not necessary to go this fast in a urban environment where people listen to music and road works obstruct view.
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