Pool manager who couldn't swim almost drowns. Now sues police

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Darwin333

Lifer
Dec 11, 2006
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I don't blame anybody for not jumping into deep water to rescue somebody that is likely to drown you along with him. Once he was off dry land, waiting for him to drown was probably the safest option for everybody*. Like you though, I don't get why they waited 2+ minutes to pull him out. He likely passed out well before that.

*Except perhaps for the guy drowning.

I don't know, half a dozen strong cops should very easily be able to pull a guy out of the water. Single cops, firefighters, and even medics have successfully and without hesitation dove after people trying to commit suicide in truly dangerous bodies of water, rivers like the Hudson, half frozen lakes or relatively high jumps. And yeah, 2+ minutes was definitely too long to wait. Even if he hadn't completely passed out after a minute he wouldn't have enough oxygen left to put up much of a fight if that is what they were truly worried about.

After actually reading the article, I have to wonder why they let him in the water in the first place. Above anything else that seems to be their biggest fuckup and probably the only one I'd really fault them for.
 

Darwin333

Lifer
Dec 11, 2006
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I am curious as to why you draw this conclusion. I don't see any contention in this article that the man as to his actions relating to severe mental illness. Why is it that you are certain he was in control of his actions and appreciative of reality as others saw? I think calling the police and the police to entering the pool and surrounding him were clear indication that they did not believe his claims that he was a lifeguard. I cannot state based on the evidence to what degree he was competent and to what degree he was in touch with reality; even if I had sufficient evidence, it would not be ethical to render such an opinion. However, I can say that, as a psychiatrist, bipolar disorder is a potentially devastatingly debilitating mental illness wherein people can become extremely psychotic. Society has a real problem with stigmatizing mental illness, and it's quite often we fail to realize our contributions to it with statements like these.

My apologies, I didn't actually read the article until after I made that post and was going off what other posters were saying and the video. I question why the cops ever let him into the water in the first place.
 
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tynopik

Diamond Member
Aug 10, 2004
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There is no doubt that the officers had a legal duty to protect him from self-harm. Every state has a mental health code that affirms peace officers as having duty to protect people exhibiting evidence of mental illness from activity that imminently threatens harm to self or others.

link?
 

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
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Eh, you make a decent enough point. I wasn't really talking about roughing him up or anything just jumping in and attempting to rescue him which no one would call brutality. I didn't time how long he was under but it sure seemed like a really long time, I guess that could be because I was watching with the expectation of something happening. I do wonder why there were so many cops, particularly standing around the side of the pool he was in?

What I want to know is what kind of sheer mental willpower that dude had to stay under the water until he passed out. You'd have to fight a pretty strong flight or fight reaction to your body shutting down like that, and he just stayed down there until he knocked himself out. That's crazy! Reminds me of that one picture of the monk who set himself on fire as a public statement.
 

Darwin333

Lifer
Dec 11, 2006
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What I want to know is what kind of sheer mental willpower that dude had to stay under the water until he passed out. You'd have to fight a pretty strong flight or fight reaction to your body shutting down like that, and he just stayed down there until he knocked himself out. That's crazy! Reminds me of that one picture of the monk who set himself on fire as a public statement.

I'd think this took more "power" since setting yourself on fire only requires a strick of a match, you don't have much choice after that. Obviously takes a ton of balls and even more crazy but keeping yourself underwater until your body literally starts forcing you to breathe in water takes a, relatively speaking, fuckton longer. I agree with Interchange, the guy had to be in some sort of serious mental "break" (not sure of the clinical term) to do something like that as well as you, to suppress the fight or flight would also, which I have personally experienced in an extreme way, would take a lot. Perhaps not if he was in some sort of mental break, I don't know about that.

Edit: I thought I remembered something so I did a quick google, the monk seems to have, at least mostly, say still while he burned. From someone who has suffered extreme burns, and the fight or flight that accompanies it, that monk is far more than a badass.
 

Jeeebus

Diamond Member
Aug 29, 2006
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There is no doubt that the officers had a legal duty to protect him from self-harm. Every state has a mental health code that affirms peace officers as having duty to protect people exhibiting evidence of mental illness from activity that imminently threatens harm to self or others.


I'm also curious where he's getting his information. MOST (about 29) but certainly not ALL states impose a mandatory duty to warn/protect on mental health professionals who receive information that a patient is going to hurt himself or others. Those codes apply to mental health professionals - not law enforcement officers.

There are dozens (if not hundreds) of cases pre- and post-dating the Supreme Court case I linked above which each affirm that the police have no specific duty to protect. This is a good site with links to multiple cases: https://www.policeone.com/police-jo...cops-confusion-over-the-public-duty-doctrine/

This is another relatively famous case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia

I haven't even read the article in this thread, but unless the cops told him to hold his head underwater and stay there until they rescued him, there's no liability or duty to do anything. They might be shitty people for not rescuing him, but that's not what the law requires.
 

interchange

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
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I think I overstepped my knowledge base as far as peace officer duty. I tried to look through the VA mental health code and find this but could only find authorization to act and not duty, but by no means is that easy reading so I can't say I haven't missed something. But I'm perfectly willing to admit it seems that duty is not explicit, which is sad. Of course, the guy's lawyers think there is liability so maybe it's not so cut and dry.

I can answer with more authority about providers. @Jeeebus I think you are referring to Tarasoff laws, which covers duty of a provider to warn or protect the target of a patient's violent intent. This is not the same thing. I am confident that every state grants mental health providers (and potentially all physicians) authority to initiate involuntary psychiatric hold/evaluation, but that does not equate to requirement to initiate such a process. However, any provider who has established duty to care for any patient is still liable for their care through malpractice law. If they breached standard of care by not intervening on their psychiatric illness and their dereliction was more likely than not the proximate cause of harm to a patient, then they are liable for the damages the patient incurred.
 

interchange

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
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There are a couple of interesting angles to the liability question in this case if indeed case law shows police have no requirement to actually protect people from harm.

1. The article states that the ED physician notes say he was underwater for 30-60s and that he was mistreated due to an inaccurate reporting of the time underwater by police causing damages. If they can prove that police negligently or intentionally misrepresented his time underwater causing damage, are the police liable? I think yes.

2. The lifeguard is also part of the suit. If we simplify things and imagine a case where a person is drowning in a pool with a lifeguard on duty and that lifeguard chooses not to save him, is that lifeguard or the company that owns the pool liable? Obviously yes. Well, in this case, police instructed him not to intervene. So that raises two questions for me. First, does the lifeguard still have responsibility to save the guy despite police telling him not to? Second, does the police's instruction mean the did more than fail to act but actually actively obstructed a responsible party from acting thus making them liable for preventing the lifeguard from doing his job? I don't like any affirmative answers to either of those questions unless there was intent or gross negligence that could be shown.
 

Darwin333

Lifer
Dec 11, 2006
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There are a couple of interesting angles to the liability question in this case if indeed case law shows police have no requirement to actually protect people from harm.

1. The article states that the ED physician notes say he was underwater for 30-60s and that he was mistreated due to an inaccurate reporting of the time underwater by police causing damages. If they can prove that police negligently or intentionally misrepresented his time underwater causing damage, are the police liable? I think yes.

He was under water for 2:34 by my quick count so they got it remarkably wrong. I get that how long something seems to occur can be rather subjective but 30 seconds sounds like they were just trying to cover their asses. Unfortunately I don't know how you prove that in court.

2. The lifeguard is also part of the suit. If we simplify things and imagine a case where a person is drowning in a pool with a lifeguard on duty and that lifeguard chooses not to save him, is that lifeguard or the company that owns the pool liable? Obviously yes. Well, in this case, police instructed him not to intervene. So that raises two questions for me. First, does the lifeguard still have responsibility to save the guy despite police telling him not to? Second, does the police's instruction mean the did more than fail to act but actually actively obstructed a responsible party from acting thus making them liable for preventing the lifeguard from doing his job? I don't like any affirmative answers to either of those questions unless there was intent or gross negligence that could be shown.

Is the lifeguard part of the suit or the company he works for? I'm assuming it's the latter, in civil suits lawyers generally take the shotgun approach on who to include in the lawsuit but generally only people/entities that have resources. I'm not a lawyer but it also might be so that they can depose him? There is no way that I can see any reasonable person would hold him accountable. He could have been arrested and charged with at least a few crimes like disobeying police orders, interfering with a police or even obstruction of justice off the top of my head. The fact that he was ordered by the cops not to rescue him which implies he wanted to go in after him might put civil liability on the police. One thing for sure is that they damn sure should have gone in, or let the lifeguard go in, after him well before two and half minutes. I have to wonder if the lifeguard wasn't there how long before the cops themselves would have gone in after him, they didn't seem too concerned.
 

Darwin333

Lifer
Dec 11, 2006
19,946
2,329
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throw his lawyers into the deep end.

Assuming the guys story is 100% true I don't know anymore. If you threaten to kill yourself a ton of cops will show up at your house with guns drawn, kick in your door if necessary, handcuff you and then usually take you to some sort of medical/mental institution where you will be held against your will for a period of time that depends on the state. They aren't supposed to just watch you kill yourself especially when this guy didn't have a weapon and wasn't even acting violently against the officers. They might not have a strict legal duty to protect us but morally it is just fucked up for that many people, sworn to protect and serve, to nonchalantly stand around watching a guy try, and almost succeed, to drown himself. Not only did they watch but they ordered a lifeguard not to help him.
 

interchange

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
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He was under water for 2:34 by my quick count so they got it remarkably wrong. I get that how long something seems to occur can be rather subjective but 30 seconds sounds like they were just trying to cover their asses. Unfortunately I don't know how you prove that in court.

It sounds that way but who knows. The burden of proof though in a civil case is preponderance of evidence (more likely than not), so that seems at least a possible bar to reach. Now...I can say from personal experience working in medicine that many times a medical note contains inaccuracies simply because the authors are human. By the time they wrote the note, maybe they remembered 30-60s even if they were told otherwise. Still, that seems like a fairly critical piece of information so I'm not sure the excuse that the physician remembered wrong is good enough. It's not like people are good judges of estimating time, either, although I think estimating 30-60s for what was 2:34 is pushing that pretty far.
 

Darwin333

Lifer
Dec 11, 2006
19,946
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It sounds that way but who knows. The burden of proof though in a civil case is preponderance of evidence (more likely than not), so that seems at least a possible bar to reach. Now...I can say from personal experience working in medicine that many times a medical note contains inaccuracies simply because the authors are human. By the time they wrote the note, maybe they remembered 30-60s even if they were told otherwise. Still, that seems like a fairly critical piece of information so I'm not sure the excuse that the physician remembered wrong is good enough. It's not like people are good judges of estimating time, either, although I think estimating 30-60s for what was 2:34 is pushing that pretty far.

I'd be far more inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt if they had just said 60s but I find it very hard to believe that any of them thought or remembered he was only under for 30 seconds. Even the voices you hear on the tape remark to how long he had been under and that they needed to go in after him, well before they did actually go in after him, and you don't generally say that about someone who has only been under for 30 seconds.
 
Jun 18, 2000
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Assuming the guys story is 100% true I don't know anymore. If you threaten to kill yourself a ton of cops will show up at your house with guns drawn, kick in your door if necessary, handcuff you and then usually take you to some sort of medical/mental institution where you will be held against your will for a period of time that depends on the state. They aren't supposed to just watch you kill yourself especially when this guy didn't have a weapon and wasn't even acting violently against the officers. They might not have a strict legal duty to protect us but morally it is just fucked up for that many people, sworn to protect and serve, to nonchalantly stand around watching a guy try, and almost succeed, to drown himself. Not only did they watch but they ordered a lifeguard not to help him.
I don't get why you keep beating this drum. Cops aren't busting down your door if they think you have a gun. They won't risk a show of force harming either the mental patient or themselves. And this crazy person swimming into the deep end is the equivalent of having a gun.