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Near-Fatal Accident....Is This a Fellow SWer?
If this happens to be a fellow SWer or maybe someone you know, please know my heart goes out to this woman.
To sum it up, she is a dancer from CA who was in Chicago to possibly dance at a club here. She was arrested for 'causing a disturbance' and brought to a terrible neighborhood, where the only female lockup is in Chicago. They released her and she was wandering around this terrible neighborhood.....and ended up in a possible sexual assault situation and then fell (or got pushed) 7 stories. She is in critical condition at a local hospital. Read on/click below for the details ........
Cops probe UCLA student's fall from high-rise
BY ANNIE SWEENEY Crime Reporter
Chicago Police are investigating why a California college student -- stranded in Chicago and trying to get home -- fell or was thrown from a seventh-floor window of the last remaining building in the Robert Taylor Homes.
The UCLA student ...was arrested and held by Chicago Police after causing a disturbance, authorities said.
By Monday evening, the 21-year-old woman was wandering the neighborhood near the Taylor Homes -- possibly asking for help -- before she somehow wound up in a vacant apartment in the building at 5131 S. Federal.
Witnesses reported hearing a loud argument coming from the apartment about 11:30 p.m. Monday and then saw her body crash to the ground, the source said.
The woman was wearing only her underwear, and investigators think the woman might have been the victim of a sexual assault. She was in very critical condition at Stroger Hospital, suffering from massive trauma, the source said.
...Police were also seeking to confirm reports the woman came to Chicago with another man to dance at a nightclub for several thousand dollars. The woman has worked as a dancer and stripper to put herself through college, the source said.
Family: Police missed illness
...The woman had been arrested Sunday on the Orange Line near Midway Airport after making a disturbance and spent the night in the Wentworth District lockup. She was released Monday. Her family has notified the police department to say they think the district should have been aware their daughter is bipolar....
....The man she allegedly came to Chicago with was unknown to police Wednesday, and the story was still being investigated, the source said.
Investigators think she and the man had a disagreement, which led her to call home Saturday. "She calls home to say 'I'm stranded, I'm stuck in Chicago,' '' the source said. Her stepfather told her to go to Midway, and "I'll fly you home,'' the source said.
May have sought help on State St.
Chicago transit police approached her, but she was very upset and "not cooperating,'' the source said. After spending the night in the lockup, she was released at 6:30 p.m., Cline said.....
www.suntimes.com
Click here for the full story
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Re: Near-Fatal Accident....Is This a Fellow SWer?
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Re: Near-Fatal Accident....Is This a Fellow SWer?
Wow.. I hope that's not one of our own. Either way though, it's very sad. I hope she'll recover alright.
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Re: Near-Fatal Accident....Is This a Fellow SWer?
This pisses me off. WHO IN THE FUCKING CHICAGO POLICE DEPT. ALLOWED SOMEONE TO DUMP A 21 YEAR OLD WHITE GIRL IN THE PROJECTS WHO WAS FROM OUT OF TOWN???
For those of you who don't know...you do not go anywhere near the Robert Taylor homes unless you want to be raped, mugged, murdered or all three.
Assholes. I hope the family sues the ass off of them.
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Re: Near-Fatal Accident....Is This a Fellow SWer?
That's fucked up. I hope the poor girl is okay.
I had a cop tell me and my friend during Gasparilla that "I don't care how you get home. Park and walk," when I tried to ask him for help getting around the barricaded street that led to my house (which was unbarricaded an hour later.) Me and my friend, who had just flown in from California to Florida to see her dying mom, had to park and walk with all her luggage and laptop over a mile at night to my apartment. We didn't even realize at the time but we walked right past a home for convicted sex offenders! Then we had to walk back later and get my car and had people hollering at us as we were walking down the street at 11 p.m. I have nothing against the police department, but some people should NOT be cops!
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Re: Near-Fatal Accident....Is This a Fellow SWer?
holy fuck that place is like 10 miles from my apt ...
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Re: Near-Fatal Accident....Is This a Fellow SWer?
Venus .... I was thinking the exact same thing....although I'm not sure if she was white. Did I overlook it?
Anyhow, I work 1 mile away from there, and I HATE driving to work, even that makes me nervous b/c there's so much crime there, it's not even funny. If you look at www.chicagocrime.org, you can see the *reported* crime, but believe me, I see a whole lot more going on that just what's listed......I hope this girl is going to recover OK. It's so terrible.
Venus (and those who know the area) ..... even before the possible assault and the fall, can you imagine how scared she was just looking at the surrounding area at 6:30 PM (when she was released)?! That area can be sickening/frightening during the day, let alone at night.
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Re: Near-Fatal Accident....Is This a Fellow SWer?
Why do the words "Chapelle" and "When keeping it real goes wrong" come into my mind?
It's a shame, but it sure sounds like that girl had a mouth that got her into A LOT of trouble.
Let me add, I don't want to pay the police department to be 1) A taxi service for criminals getting out and 2) paying the police to drop criminals just out of jail into "safe" areas - aka low crime keep the doors unlocked areas.
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Re: Near-Fatal Accident....Is This a Fellow SWer?
I'll pay for it, D.
I decided to move to Harlem one year because I thought I'd blend in and have cheap rent in Manhattan---HA!!! It just doesn't matter what color you are--you have a big ass target on your back in an area like that. It wouldn't hurt to give a one way metro pass to indigent people discharged there.
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Re: Near-Fatal Accident....Is This a Fellow SWer?
I understand what you're saying, but I do feel compelled to defend her. She's not from here, something happened to the supposed guy she was supposed to be here with, her stepdad was supposed to have a ticket waiting for her to come home to CA....I think I'd be pretty pissed if I arrived at the airport and they had no record of my ticket home. Not to mention the fact that she's bipolar. Not that it's an excuse, but you never know what could have happened leading up to this. And on some level I DO feel that there should be some type of responsibility to make sure a person is relatively safe. The police are here to serve and protect ..... and in that area that is a joke. Our tax dollars pay for real criminals to watch cable tv and have 3 meals a day and we pay for them to be able to make good money painting (a la Richard Speck at Stateville Prison), so why not look after the safety of a mentally ill female from out of town. She is not a criminal in the sense of committing a real crime, she was being a nuisance. (according to the report)
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Re: Near-Fatal Accident....Is This a Fellow SWer?
Wow sad.
But in all fairness, here too we have Sharps prison short term facility, and when you are released, it's your job to find a ride out. Taxi, friend or walk. It's not the best area to be turned out in either, but the police did what they do, right or wrong. They released a woman from jail.
I mean she was not cooperating with police then, what says she was at release time. She was probably a very pissed off person as it sounds she may have been angry, and stormed out as they let her.
I think it's sad this happened to her. But police depts. let people out of jail, ride or not, area does not seem to matter to them around here either.
Hope she does fine.
Pamela
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Re: Near-Fatal Accident....Is This a Fellow SWer?
OMG!
I will be keeping this girl in my thoughts and prayers and I hope the Chicago Police gets investigated and a new policy is created so that something like this doesn't happen again. :'(
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Re: Near-Fatal Accident....Is This a Fellow SWer?
Quote:
Originally Posted by FrustratedBunny
That's fucked up. I hope the poor girl is okay.
Me too--but I sincerely doubt it, the odds of falling 7 stories and being anything like OK are pretty bad.
The poor woman--even if she manages to recover anything approaching normalcy physically, she'll be scarred for life, mentally. But odds are she's going to be at the least a physical cripple, and if her head hit, a mental cripple as well.
So very tragic......
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Re: Near-Fatal Accident....Is This a Fellow SWer?
That's shattering. I can't even contemplate how the girl and her family must be feeling. If someone I knew or cared for had that happen to them...I don't even know if it's worth bearing thinking about.
Whatever the case, I doubt any major investigation will go into it. This might sound harsh, but in the reality of life, it just doesn't seem like a case people are going to give a damn about a few months, maybe even weeks from now. They'll just keep using the excuse that she was 'non-cooperative' (even though it's understandable that the police would have not been able to diagnose her disorder). If it has to remain the focus of attention, it'll take a large commitment on the family's part to keep any interest running, as always is the case with tragic stories of this nature.
But that being said, I wouldn't wish this on anyone. I hope she recovers, although with the bipolar disorder and combined trauma/injury, goodness knows how soon.
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Re: Near-Fatal Accident....Is This a Fellow SWer?
I don't know about how I feel about the police dropping off someone like Gacy in my neighborhood, but how can they justify opening the door and kicking out someone who is not from in-state, who clearly is a bit confused, and leaving a WOMAN (black or white) in the middle of the roughest fucking part of town? How hard would it have been to drop her off at the EL? Especially since they KNEW she was trying to get to the airport, that her parents already called and said that she was bi-polar, etc. How can they justify this? She wasn't even a criminal...no criminal record, no previous run-ins with any police...
For those of you who don't know...taxis and buses do not frequent the Robert Taylor area. For the simple reason that the chances of them getting robbed/shot/etc are very high. I know that there are some bus stops through the area, but they are not frequent.
Now, as a cop and knowing all of this...where is the "justification" for doing this?
As I said before...it's a major snafu and they should get their asses sued. I'm not one for lawsuits...but this is just BAD, BAD, BAD conduct.
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Re: Near-Fatal Accident....Is This a Fellow SWer?
Quote:
Me too--but I sincerely doubt it, the odds of falling 7 stories and being anything like OK are pretty bad.
that's true. I guess I missed that part reading it. I knew someone who fell 3 stories and is now fine but 7 is a different story.
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Re: Near-Fatal Accident....Is This a Fellow SWer?
Here's a newstory on this:
For the full story, go here: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...-newslocal-hed
By David Heinzmann, Tribune staff reporter. Tribune staff reporter Jeff Coen contributed to this report
Published May 12, 2006
The Chicago Police Department has guidelines for dealing with the mentally ill that would have provided medical treatment for a Los Angeles woman if officers had followed protocols and delivered her to a nearby hospital, said a mental health expert who helps oversee the department's training practices.
Instead, officers released the 21-year-old woman Monday night into an unfamiliar, high-crime neighborhood where investigators believe she was raped and thrown from the 7th-floor window of a public housing building a block east of the police station.[/snip]
[snip] Internal affairs investigators are looking into police handling of the case, including the allegation that the woman's family telephoned repeatedly during her incarceration Sunday and Monday to warn that she suffered from bipolar disorder.
The family also allegedly told police she was not taking her medication.
Even if the woman appeared composed at times, it is very unlikely she showed no signs of mental illness during the more than 24 hours she was in custody, said Suzanne Andriukaitis, executive director of the Chicago office of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Her organization has administered crisis intervention team training at the Police Academy since 2004 to teach officers how to recognize mental illness.[/snip]
[snip] The designated hospital for the Wentworth District, which is at 51st Street and Wentworth Avenue, is St. Bernard Hospital, 326 W. 64th St.--less than 2 miles away.[/snip]
[snip] Internal affairs is investigating whether the officers involved had sufficient information to believe the woman was suffering from mental illness, and if so, what decisions were made about following the protocols, said police spokeswoman Monique Bond. Also under investigation was the decision to release the woman from the Wentworth District while her luggage was being held more than 4 miles west at the Chicago Lawn District, where she was first taken after her arrest, Bond said. Wentworth has holding cells for women.[/snip]
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hello_Kitty27
Venus .... I was thinking the exact same thing....although I'm not sure if she was white. Did I overlook it?
[snip]Police first encountered the woman, described as petite with blond hair, at about 2 p.m. Sunday on the CTA Orange Line platform at Midway Airport. She had difficulty getting a flight home to Los Angeles and created a disturbance while having a heated cell phone conversation with a family member, sources said. She then argued with a station employee who tried to intervene, police said.[/snip]
I find this interesting, as well: [snip] A source familiar with the investigation said that her father called repeatedly to beg that she be held until a family member arrived from California to take her home, the source said.[/snip]
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Re: Near-Fatal Accident....Is This a Fellow SWer?
Quote:
Originally Posted by FrustratedBunny
that's true. I guess I missed that part reading it. I knew someone who fell 3 stories and is now fine but 7 is a different story.
Yeah, especially in the Robert Taylor area, where the trees/shrubs are pretty much non-existent. I don't know if anything broke her fall (an awning of some kind...) but from the article, it doesn't sound good at all...
I really, really, really hope that she's going to be ok. I really hope that she'll survive.
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Re: Near-Fatal Accident....Is This a Fellow SWer?
This is so sad.
On one hand it seem that if just one person had a little compasssion and offered to take her to the El station or to the hospital or hold her till her father could get there she may be okay today.
On the other hand if she was off her medication she may have been beligerant(sp?) and not agreeing to the help. Without being there it is hard to tell.
This is tough for me because I do not like goverment coming in and forcing help upon someone, but if they knew she was bipolar and off medication she should not have been aloud to refuse help.
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Re: Near-Fatal Accident....Is This a Fellow SWer?
Probably some corrupt and jaded policeman wanted to get rid of this problem woman (maybe the ones that had to deal with her craziness), so he arranged to dump her off in a part of town he wouldn't let his dog in. Some are like that, you know.
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Re: Near-Fatal Accident....Is This a Fellow SWer?
I used to ride the El for fun in the middle of the night, all over Chicago when I was in college.
That didn't last long, even a dumb kid like me could see it was asking for trouble--especially in project areas like the one this woman was dumped. The South Side will make you streetwise very quickly, if you wander far from the isolated enclave of the well-guarded campus.
During my last year there, I once got off at an El stop with 5 guys that I knew were going to probably rob me and possibly beat my skinny college boy ass.
Because to have ridden on to the next stop would have been potentially suicidal. They did rob me, but very politely--they let me keep my paycheck and the cheescake my boss had given me at the restaurant I worked in.
A petite blonde woman her age would be like a goldfish in a tank full of piranha in that area.
This woman will never be the same again, no matter what miracle might enable her to walk and talk, at least.
And a heated cellphone argument is what started the whole thing?! Jesus!!
Word to the wise--I've worked with some very crazy, very belligerent and tempermental dancers, especially the ones into drinking and drugs. A lot of them get arrested way more frequently than they have to, because they simply don't know when to can it and shut up, if they can't manage to be polite to the cops harassing them.
Don't ever tell the cops to fuck off, no matter how much they are being assholes...
I'm not saying that's what this woman did, and I haven't even read the whole linked news story, but reading between the lines, she had a temper, and that's what got her into this bizarre and utterly horrifying situation.
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Re: Near-Fatal Accident....Is This a Fellow SWer?
Thats so sad...i hope shes ok. I never liked police anyways.....since ive been in florida they have messed with me for the dumbest things.... wish i had the energy to sue them. no disrespect, they do some good,but seems like they r out for themselves so etimes. they shouldnt have let her go in that area.
i remember robert taylor....what street is it on again?
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Re: Near-Fatal Accident....Is This a Fellow SWer?
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Originally Posted by dishis
On the other hand if she was off her medication she may have been beligerant(sp?) and not agreeing to the help. Without being there it is hard to tell.
If a person shows signs of mental illness, that person no longer has the "rights" that people without mental issues have to refuse help. Legally this includes the mentally handicapped, the mentally ill, and anyone in an altered state. If the family called to tell the police officers this, then the police had the right to do a 72 hour lock up (at least, that's the way it works in CA, and I assume there's something similar in that state) for assessment. They could have also held her for 24 hours without charging her (from my more limited knowledge I'm attributed to cop tv shows.)
There was no excuse for letting the woman go at 6:30 pm. They should have held on to her until at least morning (if there was no indication of mental illness.)
With the mental illness (which she had to have exhibited and which the police were warned about) I really do hope that the police officers connected with the case get fired. They have no business serving to "protect" the people in their city.
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Re: Near-Fatal Accident....Is This a Fellow SWer?
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Originally Posted by fancygirl
If a person shows signs of mental illness, that person no longer has the "rights" that people without mental issues have to refuse help.
I understand and agree with your sentiments, however, it is understandable that someone with bipolar disorder was not diagnosed by the police at time of arrest.
The punishable error is that after the police where informed of her bipolar disorder. They let her go. All acts further down this timeline only serve to prove the malicious intent I believe the officers had. It makes me wonder. Why would they knowingling do that to someone, and it makes me fear that maybe the first sexual advanced happened pre-parents calling and dropping her off in the bad neighborhood was some form of revenge.
People sicken me. The world really needs a hero.
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Re: Near-Fatal Accident....Is This a Fellow SWer?
Venus, thanks for that other article...... I was looking on other news sites and saw nothing mentioned. The article from the tribune made my jaw drop a few times.
The one thing I keep thinking about is that I've lived here for all my life - 26yrs almost - and I am familiar with the area, I drive through the general surrounding area to go to work.....and even then I am frightened of the area. In the middle of the day. I seriously can't imagine what I would do if I was lost, confused, etc ......I just don't know. I know it sounds bad, but especially being a petite blond .....talk about sticking out.
I don't know what else to say, except for that I wish her a good recovery, both physical and mental.