The normal course of affairs is that there is no situation a police officer prefers than one where he comes out a hero. Saving a life, especially that of a child, is the chance to make the front page, get the gold shield, shake hands with the mayor and make a name for oneself. So what if that’s what they are trained and paid to do. Glory is a wonderful thing.
Which is why the story of Briana Ojeda, an 11 year old in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, is so bizarre. She died following an asthma attack, with her mother alleging that an NYPD officer she flagged down after hitting a car in an effort to get her daughter to the hospital, refused to perform CPR, claiming he didn’t know how to do it. The officer then drove behind her as she made her way to the hospital, rather than leading the way to expedite her arrival. And then drove off.
The story first appeared in the New York Post, and was picked up on cop website PoliceOne.
Briana was playing in Carroll Park in Carroll Gardens on Friday when she suffered an asthma attack, according to the family.
Her mother managed to drive her within three blocks of the hospital when she hit a parked car and flagged down the white marked car for help.
Michael Ojeda said he has a radio scanner and heard the cop who stopped his daughter misrepresent what happened when he called other officers.
Scott Voloshin, a good Samaritan who performed CPR on Briana, later insisted the man who stopped the family was an NYPD officer.
But Browne noted that the family claimed the man denied knowing CPR, in which all NYPD officers are trained.
The department “has not yet determined whether he was an NYPD officer or some other uniformed individual, such as an auxiliary [cop] or a traffic agent or a lookalike entity,” he said.
What sort of outrage, anger, mere sadness and condolence, did the fine officers have for the grieving family of this 11 year old child?
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Granted, the story is less than informative in many respects, though it is the New York Post (the most knee-jerk pro-law enforcement paper in New York and, purely coincidentally, catering toward people who prefer short words and even shorter stories), yet there is no doubt that the story involves a dead child. Nonetheless, not one demonstrated the slightest concern for the child.
Since this story, it’s been determined that it was indeed an NYPD officer, a five year veteran, Alfonso Mendez, who was on the scene and refused to give CPR or otherwise help. According to investigators, Mendez wasn’t confident in his CPR abilities, so decided to do nothing.
After identifying Mendez from a gas station video when he filled up the tank of his cruiser, he was suspended without pay and stripped of his gun and shield. Not for failing to help Briana, however.
That Officer Mendez never made a record of his actions is what led to his suspension, Mr. Browne said. “A police officer would be required,” he said, “to radio in the fact he had this pickup job.”
That’s police lingo for a dying 11 year old child on the street. A pickup job. Don’t forget to call it in or you could get in trouble. Then, even your brother officers may not defend you.
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I came across the PoliceOne story and comments and had the same reaction you did. Thanks for posting.
As its the week before labor day, and some who normally read and comment on this blog might be away, I fear that an important part of the conversation may go unheard, so as a public service, I’ll offer the following-
How can you criticize the police? You don’t know what its like to patrol some of these neighborhoods. Just be grateful for them. If we didn’t have them, you or your wife/sister/mother/daugher might die or worse.
Thank you for holding up the fort while the badge-lickers are on vacation. But if you’re going to do it right, wife/sister/mother/daugher get raped before they are murdered.
So, in answer to “why didn’t she call 911?”:
My son, Sean Parmley, died while waiting 17 minutes for an ambulance, following his being stabbed during a robbery. The ambulance couldn’t find the apartment, partly because of inherent limitations in the E911 system in Southern California, partly because of sheer incompetence on the part of the ambulance crew and police dispatchers (who run the E911 system).
My grandson could have walked to the hospital faster. Instead, he got to hold his father while he died.
Don’t talk to me about 911.
I am very sorry to hear about your son, John. Bear in mind that while it didn’t work in your situation, ambulances and paramedics have saved many thousands of lives. You are right, however, that some people believe that the time taken waiting for the arrival of an ambulance is time that would be better spent getting to the hospital, which could explain why they chose not to call 911.
I made the same choice (driver myself) when my daughter was going into anaphalactic shock (throat starting to close up) early one morning. A couple factors… 1. I knew where the hospital was… about 10 blocks away on the same road; 2. We had already been there several hours earlier, and I knew how long it took to get there…about 5 minutes; 3. it was about 9 am on a weekend morning and there was no traffic.
When she collapsed I put her in the car and drove as fast as I felt safe going, with my flashers on, pulled into the ER unloading bay, told the ER staff what was happening, and parked the car as she was being wheeled into the hospital. My hope was that if I did see a cop car, I could flag it down and ask for an escort, but never saw one.
Why the cop in the NYC case couldn’t have just put the girl in the squad car and raced her to the hospital is a mystery to me. Everything else should have come second to saving a life.
Emergency care workers generally advise waiting for the ambulance, on the theory that the patient will be able to receive medical care during the trip. The only empirical study I’m aware of, however, suggested that patients transported by friends or family have better outcomes, presumably because avoiding the wait for the ambulance means they arrive at the emergency room sooner. Obviously, a lot depends on specific facts, like the nature of the medical emergency, the distance to the hospital, and how soon an ambulance can reach the scene.
But even if we grant that the woman was doing everything wrong, that has no bearing on whether the cop did the right thing.
Of course. My bad.
Thanks Scott. You are absolutely correct that 911 saves many, many lives. I just object to the “911 is ALWAYS perfect, the right answer etc.” just like I object to “the officer is always right, you don’t know what we go through (sob).”
Having been both a sworn LEO and ambulance rider, I have a very different picture of both.
My general attitude to any sort of service in this world is that it works perfectly until it doesn’t and at that point you’re entitled to complain about it for not working. There’s nothing wrong with pointing out when police, fire, ambulance etc don’t save your life or violate your civil liberties or damage your property or so on. It’s not what’s supposed to happen. A police officer who doesn’t help you when you’re in need is like a waiter who gets your order wrong.
See, this is one reason I keep coming back here to peruse and comment, even though Scott is mean to me.
Let us stipulate that on an individual basis cops are mostly good guys. Nevertheless, the comments on the “PoliceOne” website illustrate the depressing group think they are prone to, especially when they feel criticized.
The underlying story is both simple and tragic. An 11 year old is dead, probably unnecessarily. One known opportunity for a different outcome was botched by a police officer.
But then the blue line closes ranks, and the campaign is on to blame someone else – like the grieving parents – even though this adds cruelty to tragedy, even though it’s nothing but baseless speculation and obvious, thoroughly incredible spin on the known events.
Once this self-justifying mindset takes hold, no fact, no matter how obvious or significant, will be allowed to interfere with the accepted narrative.
And as Scott points out, it can be ugly: forget the dead kid and the grieving parents, we control the terms of the debate, the system will vindicate us because we have clout, we can spin it our way and make the facts disappear or fade to insignificance.
You see this a lot out here. Not usually this bad, but the power the police have in the system tempts them. They lose sight of simple decency in their reflexive exercise of power and self-justification.