Man Arrested For Having a Stroke

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Police in Tampa, Florida arrested a black man in his 50s for not 
following orders. The man spent 36 hours on the floor of a jail cell 
before being transferred to a hospital where he died 3 months later. Why
 didn't Allen Daniel Hicks follow police orders? Because he was having a
 stroke...

Allen Daniel Hicks Dead: Stroke Death Of Inmate Sparks State Investigation

									An inmate's death from an untreated stroke has prompted a $1 million settlement and a government investigation.

The Tampa Bay Times reports on the circumstances surrounding Allen Daniel Hicks' last days:

Hicks, 51, was arrested in May 2012 after veering off 
Interstate 275 in Tampa. He was booked into jail without a medical 
screening, rambling incoherently and dragging his left leg. 

More than a full day passed — during much of which Hicks lay on the 
floor of his cell or tried to crawl using only his right limbs — before 
he was taken to Tampa General Hospital and immediately diagnosed with a 
severe ischemic stroke. He slipped into a coma and died months later.

Police said they arrested Hicks because he failed to follow commands to get out of his vehicle.

Now the state's health department is launching an investigation into 
Hicks' death which, the Times reports, will largely focus on the actions
 of Armor Correctional Health Services Inc., a private company that has 
been contracted to take care of Hillsborough prisoners.

The announcement of the investigation comes the same month that 
Hicks' family agreed to a $1 million settlement with the Hillsborough 
County Sheriff's Office and Armor, according to WFLA.

"You should be able to get help from medical personnel and police 
officers and not be taken to jail, and we feel the highway patrol and 
EMT should have much better training on recognizing stroke victims," 
attorney Paul Rebein, who represented Hicks' family, said.

	In previous comments to The Huffington Post,
 David Fathi, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union 
National Prison Project, said the government is constitutionally 
required to protect prisoners' health. “Prison officials have a duty 
under the Constitution to provide prisoners with adequate medical care,"
 Fathi said in an email. "When they violate that duty, the results can 
be tragic.”

Companies looking out for their bottom lines have no business providing services to prisoners, according to Fathi.

"We believe that incarceration is a uniquely governmental function 
that should never be contracted out to private, for-profit 
corporations," Fathi said. "When you combine the profit motive with 
limited oversight and an unpopular, politically powerless group like 
prisoners, it’s a recipe for bad outcomes.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/29/allen-daniel-hicks-dead-stroke-inmate-investigation_n_3671121.html