The police body cam below captured what transpired between a Louisville-Kentucky officer and a homeless pregnant woman who was getting into labor – the video ended with the woman being detained and ticketed for unlawful camping but the good side is that she got the much-needed speedy medical attention and delivered safely.
According to the released police footage, on September 27, Lt. Caleb Stewart approached the homeless woman who had her personal belongings – clothes, blankets, and some mattress and was seemingly living under an interstate bridge near downtown.
As the cop approached her, she said she said she was waiting for an ambulance and might be going into labor.
When Officer Stewart asked her if she had called for one, she said she did not call because she didn’t have a phone, but her husband had gone out to find a phone to call the emergency service.
She also said she was leaking – signifying her pregnancy was due and she was close to delivery.
The metro cop enquired further if she actually was in labor, as she said. She replied that she was leaking water – “all of my embryonic fluid, I’m leaking out”, she said hysterically.
She complained about hating her life so much because the authorities impounded her RV which she and her husband lived in – hence, they cannot get off the streets.
Watch the video below:
However, when the officer called his department and requested for an ambulance to be dispatched to his location, she told him not to worry, started packing up some of her belongings, and was leaving.
The metro cop ordered her to stop – she was leaving and would not answer the officer’s question who was asking her how many months pregnant she was.
She asked if she was being detained and the officer affirmed it and told her it was for unlawful camping.
She then answered that she was past her due date on October 29 and was going to meet her husband/hospital and asked what she was doing wrong in an emotionally laden voice.
They both walk to the road to wait for the EMS while she cursed the police calling them “evil people”. She lamented again that she does not have a home because the police took away her RV which she bought for $12,000.
She revealed that the RV was parked at a skate park when she left to buy food, but before she returned, it was already towed away. She continued that her live-in-home was labeled an abandoned vehicle and she had to pay $6,000 to get it out and she had all her personal belongings in it.
Breaking down, she said she only bought the vehicle to get off the streets, but she lost it after it was impounded.
Lt. Caleb Stewart got some online bashing when he said he did not have one ounce of belief that the homeless woman was going into labor because she had “pulled this kind of stunt before”, but he nonetheless, called for emergency medical service under code 3 just in case he was wrong.
He further defended his stance by noting the woman saying she had called the EMS when she didn’t have a telephone.
He handed her a citation for unlawful camping as the siren from an ambulance which was coming for her blew close. He cautioned her against sleeping on sidewalks and under bridges and notified her of her court date by 9 am on November 8 – warning her that an arrest warrant might be issued for her if she failed to appear. Court documents reveal that she will appear in court again in January.
The pregnant woman who was all the while sitting on a folded blanket on the ground, got up to meet the EMS, berating the police for being so horrible and having the job of messing with homeless people and not helping society.
Her state-provided attorney Ryan Dischinger revealed that she later gave birth to a baby boy that same day and noted the dilemma of Kentucky’s homeless people who are unavoidably breaking the law because they cannot afford a home, and referred to the State’s law as criminalization of poverty.
Defending the officer’s actions, the LMPD said that in pursuant of the Safe Kentucky Act which made street camping illegal, they had offered to shelter the woman twice but she refused.
Though the woman was apparently known to the department, their statement said that encountered her there when its officers and members of The Safe and Healthy Streets Initiative, Solid Waste Management and Homeless Services Division were mopping up the area off encampments – offering services to those living there and ticketing violators.