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We would love nothing more than for police brutality, ignorance, indifference, and ineptitude to end, however, in lieu of that idyllic reality, we will gladly accept severe financial penalties against cities, police departments, and police officers.
According to The Independent, a New Jersey woman named Cheryl Lynn Rhines has been awarded $11.5 million by an Essex County jury after she was falsely arrested and falsely accused of DUI after she suffered a stroke while driving on the New Jersey Turnpike. The 57-year-old Rhines was on her way to work on October 17, 2017, when she began to feel the effects of a severe stroke and pulled over to the side of the road. 30 minutes later, New Jersey State troopers arrived and found Rhines’ vehicle smashed into a guardrail.
Despite wearing “professional business attire”, having no warrants, and having no sign of drugs or alcohol in her car, the officers assumed that she was driving under the influence because she could not communicate, write, or respond to questions. The police report openly noted that Rhines showed “facial drooping, drooping eyelids, a gaze, confusion,” and yet they still threw her face first on the hood of her car, handcuffed her, and ignored her cries for help.
The Independent notes that there was an emergency stroke center minutes from the crash site, but troopers took Rhines to jail instead. There, troopers “mocked and ridiculed” Rhines until someone finally took her physical condition seriously and had Rhines transported to the hospital after two and a half hours.
Doctors were able to clear the blood clot that caused the stroke, but the damage was done. In the nearly three hours between the stroke and medical attention, Rhines suffered “the death of significant brain function” and would be permanently disabled as a result.
The suit surmised: “[The] defendant’s conduct was so outrageous in character and so extreme in degree as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency and is regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in a civilized community.
“Any ordinary human being observing Cheryl Rhines would have immediately recognized and called for emergent medical care.”
In hindsight, $11.5 million is good, but it’s not enough.
