Her water had broken, she said. “I’m leaking out,” she told him. She grabbed a blanket and a few personal effects as a bright orange city dump truck pulled up to remove the makeshift bed.

“Am I being detained?” she asked.
“Yes, you’re being detained,” he shouted. “You’re being detained because you’re unlawfully camping.”

Stewart walked back to his car to write the citation as city workers finished loading the mattress into the garbage truck.
Once in the police vehicle, Stewart narrated to himself as his body camera recorded his comments.
“So I don’t for a second believe that this woman is going into labor,” he said.

He returned to find the woman sitting on the ground, with legs askew and labored breathing, waiting for the ambulance. Stewart hands her a citation, and she balls it up and tosses it aside as the ambulance arrives to take her to the hospital.

This sounds like I am reading some dystopian book, not news.

This is so backwards. The government should be penalized for the existence of homelessness.

Are they pressing charges on the baby infant born during the solstice when there was no way to afford the room at the inn ?

American police evolved out of slave hunters and anti-union thugs, remember that.

Imagine if all the billions of dollars sunk into policing went to homeless shelters, healthcare and universal basic income. Instead of, you know. It being used to commit acts of violence against mothers going into labor.

I love how the police department's statement basically reads "we called an ambulance and she delivered in a hospital; otherwise, the baby might have been born on the street. We're heroes."

Everything about this is awful. My city just passed such an ordinance while patting themselves on the back about how they're "helping people", all while we have fewer than half the shelter capacity needed to house our homeless. A bunch of people, myself included, turned out to tell them what a crock of shit it was. It still passed 6-1.

And then gets into medical debt from the ambulance and the ER.

As always, ACAB.

I hate this fucking evil planet