Emergency care

About 10 days ago I was brutally beaten by a Pittsburgh Police officer while I was covering the G-20 summit.

First, I am not comfortable with the term brutally beaten, but when a group of police come up behind you and push you with their bicycles, and when you video tape one of the officers beating a young woman and when a small group of officers begin beating you with nightsticks, it seems likely that some sort of brutality will ensue. It is hard to judge ones own beating. What I saw the police do to the young woman is easily described as brutal. Hitting me repeatedly with night sticks, trying to beat the camera out of my hands, knocking me to the ground, hitting my body some more, in retrospect it seemed brutal at the time, so let's stick with that.

After the brutal beating I asked a paramedic on the scene if I should go to a nearby hospital and he said he should give me a ride, but for some reason I felt safer walking back through the police action and finding the hospital on my own. This decision made little sense, especially as I review my actions of that night.

I did find the hospital, a UPMC hospital just a few blocks from the beating. At first they wanted me to strip and walk through a decontamination tent set up outside, because people were expected to be coming from the riots and police were using tear gas. Upon closer inspection by a doctor/nurse (not sure what he was) I was told I did not smell dangerous enough for the tent. Then it was back to the emergency room entrance, where I had my bag checked out and walked through a metal detector. I should say that while my camera and tapes were in the bag, so were three spent canisters of the smoke police had been using on protesters. This was not tear gas canisters, but rather, spent smoke canisters that police had left in the streets and I had picked up to give to the photo crew I had been working with.

Once inside the hospital I was seated in a triage area where another male (doctor/nurse) was taking my vital statistics, temperature and blood pressure. While these tests were started a small group of three large men showed up in front of me. They were some sort of hospital security group and the angriest of the three asked what was in my bag. I told him that there was a camera, some tapes and 3-4 empty canisters. He asked to check it himself and I obliged. It did not take long for him to look up with a canister in his hand and ask me what that was. I told him, he found the others and announced he would be taking my bag. I told him that was not going to happen, I had just been brutally beaten by my own police department to save a camera that showed police brutally beating others, there was no way anyone was taking that camera away from me.

What happened next is possibly the most loathsome thing that has ever happened to me in my life. He gave me a choice, in his position of power. I could give up my bag to him, or I could leave. That was my option. Keep in mind, both hands, wrists and arms had been hammered with nightsticks as was my left hip. The pain was incredible, the swelling obvious and kind of scary. The hospital wanted to treat these wounds, but the security guard cared little about my health and only about my camera bag. He gave me the two options, not any sort of compromise, such as, he take the canisters, I keep the camera. Or he bag the canisters, or even the entire bag, and leave it with me. Or put everything in a secure location. No, either everything goes with him, or I leave.

I left.

I found a paramedic tent that was filled with paramedics doing nothing more than preparing for injured people. They gave me ice and I went back to my car and waited for my photographer compatriots to finish, then we went in search of another hospital.

Today I spoke with the head of security for the entire group of UPMC hospitals. What I found most inspiring is that he was sorry for the way I was treated. He kept saying that he wanted me to know that this is not the policy of the hospital or the security personal who are employed by the hospital. He was sorry for the way I was treated. I tried to be understanding, admitting that the city was on edge from the protests and the police action. I got that. What I could not understand, what i still do not understand, was how an emergency room in a major city would allow someone so obviously injured from a brutal beating to be removed from the hospital by a deranged, power hungry security person.

I am sure that someday I will get an official report that says something to the effect that something has been done and how sorry the hospital is for my discomfort. I am patient, I can wait.