Without evidence of benefit, an intervention should not be presumed to be beneficial or safe.

- Rogue Medic

OHP Trooper Update

Still no indication that the dashboard camera recording will be released. It does appear that the claims that it had been erased were not correct.

STATter911 continues to be the most informative source on this. The comments are interesting and occasionally disappointing. Some people just want to jump to conclusions about blame. This is a case, where things are not simple. As an example, the civilian in the car is now being reported to be the wife of trooper Martin. He may have just returned from a tour in Iraq.

His wife being in the car causes one kind of frustrated response. No, I do not know OHP policy on this. The possibility that this is PTSD brings out a different kind of frustration.

We do not want to pile on to the experiences of combat, but we also do not want to make PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder)[1] a Get Out of Jail, FREE card. If these updates are correct, I wonder how much it changes the desire to hit/resist/fire/ . . . trooper Martin?

Trooper Martin may be on paid leave. Whether it is voluntary is not clear and OHP is not really doing anything to suggest that they feel any obligation to the public to behave as a public agency answerable to the public that employs them to protect the public. From the start, this is a great case of how not to deal with the public.

One of the reasons to release the dashboard cam recording is to put an end to much of the speculation about what happened that was not recorded by the cell phone camera. It will not answer all questions. It may raise more questions than it answers, but there is no good reason not to release it. As has been demonstrated repeatedly, it is much better to admit mistakes, than to try to hide them. One would hope that OHP would have enough experience dealing with the mistakes of others to be able to recognize this.

Let’s take a poll. What do you guys think?

Bill Clinton – I did not have photographic relations with that dashboard camera.

Richard Nixon – Let me make one thing perfectly clear. I am not a photographer.

Emily Litella – Well, watch for yourself:

If that doesn’t convince you, nothing will.

Footnotes:

^ 1 Bryn Mawr Classical Review 94.03.21
Jonathan Shay, Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character. New York: Atheneum, 1994. Pp. 246. $20.00. ISBN 0-689-12182-2.
Reviewed by Sallie Goetsch, University of Michigan.
Full Text (short review)

This is an excellent book on PTSD. Not just relevant to warfare, but to EMS, police, and fire.

For some further reading (I have not looked at these cases in depth and I am not a lawyer), this information about self defense might apply. I still believe that the best thing to protect my patient is to refrain from any violence or resistance, but to continue to point out that the patient should be attended to first. They can always arrest me at the hospital.

OHP vs. Creek Nation EMS from the beginning, post by post:

Oklahoma Highway Patrol, Creek Nation EMS, and Abandonment 5/31/09

More on Abandonment, OHP and EMS 6/06/09

OHP Trooper Update 6/11/09

OHP Trooper Update II 6/11/09

OHP Trooper Update III 6/13/09

OHP Trooper Update IV – Holy Stammering Obscurantists 6/16/09

OHP Trooper Update V – Over an Hour of the Holy Stammering Obscurantist 6/17/09

OHP Trooper vs. EMS comment from anonymous 6/18/09

Some Corrections on OHP vs. Creek Nation EMS 6/20/09

OHP Trooper Update VI – A little Background on the Participants 6/22/09

OHP Trooper Update VII – A Little More Background on the Participants 6/22/09

Daniel Martin Suspended for 5 Days 6/22/09

Trooper Daniel Martin Subject of a Lawsuit 7/22/09

OHP Official Position – Don’t Get Caught On Camera, Otherwise Good Job. 7/23/09

An Interesting Development in the Daniel Martin Case 7/24/09

Trooper Daniel Martin In Trouble, Again 10/06/09

Maurice White Arrested 01/11/10

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