The processing of the stranded demonstrators proceeded slowly.
The first snag was when Sinclair alerted on a woman pushing a baby stroller, complete with a baby.
The woman smiled smugly, certain that she wasn’t going to jail. Her smile disappeared as the Chief called Ingham County Child Protective Services. Then, realizing that this would not be the only woman who had been ferrying incendiary devices in her baby stroller, the Chief called in Child Protective Services from all the surrounding counties.
If the women thought that their babies would protect them, they were sadly mistaken. The Chief added a note to her file to add “Child Endangerment” to the charges.
Psylla caught it all on camera.
Another complication was deciding how to split up the people who were arrested.
Kenneth Vandenberg, The Sheriff of Jackson County made the Chief’s life easier when he volunteered to take all of the demonstrators from the Chicago area.
Vandenberg was a large, soft-spoken man with a very difficult job. Jackson County is on I-94 which is the freeway that connects Detroit and Chicago. Slightly less than an hour outside of Detroit, it is a frequent target of Detroit residents who think hick towns will be easier pickings. Most of those opportunists are not candidates for Mensa and many of them are caught.
The other thing that made Jackson County a tough county is that it is home to the largest prison in Michigan. Communities that host prisons often collect families with a chip on their shoulder and "graduates" of the prison who have not compelling reason to move to other communities.
One of the factors that made Vandenberg successful was his jailhouse warden, Cindy Stepanic.
Cindy was a tough as nails, had a sense of humor and knew the quirky way prisoners think without it completely warping her personality.
Vandenberg called Stepanic on his cellphone. “Hey, Cindy, I need to give you a heads-up on some over-flow we are getting from Lansing.”
“How many?” Stepanic asked.
“Don’t know yet. But plan on getting both men and women” Vandenberg said.
They talked through a few details regarding the mechanics of the transfer, then Vandenberg ended the conversation with “...and Cindy, don’t let them get too comfortable. Some of these demonstrators were carrying signs declaring ‘Open season on Cops’."
"The other thing you need to know is there are over thirty, known fatalities and over one-hundred-fifty unaccounted for. But keep that under your hat because it is a moving number.”
Stepanic knew better than to ask for clarification. Every organization develops its own ‘code’ for communicating. The term ‘...don’t let them get too comfortable...’ allowed the Sheriff plausible deniability in the event the message were intercepted or if Stepanic's decisions were second-guessed later on by the courts.
Jails are a closed ecosystem, just like any island. Small inputs from outside the ecosystem often have large, sometimes catastrophic consequences over time. This was not lost on Stepanic.
Stepanic drove into the Jail, even though it was a Sunday and she was supposedly off work. This was not unusual. Her work was her life.
She found Sgt. Horton catching up on paperwork in the office. Among other things, Horton was her main go-to guy for computer work and regulations had a way of doubling Horton's workload every five years.
Stepanic outlined her concerns. “We are getting a bunch of rioters from Chicago and we need to keep a lid on them.”
Sgt. Horton seemed unconcerned. “We will do what we always do. How bad can they be?”
Stepanic shook her head. “From what I am hearing, they got paid $1000 a night to raise hell.”
That got Horton’s attention. “Say again?”
“Yup, you heard right; A thousand bucks a night. Apparently, these men from Chicago are so bad-ass that they are getting paid five times as much as the men they are hiring from Detroit” Stepanic said. “In fact, from what I heard they were going to stop hiring demonstrators from Detroit because they can't cut it.”
These were fabrications intended for the trustee emptying waste-paper baskets in the office. His ears were spinning around to the point where it seemed them might unscrew themselves and fall on the floor. *
Cops, as a rule, have radar that extends 360 degrees. Cops who work in jails and prisons have a double-wrap, it extends 720 degrees. Sgt. Horton could see the reflection of the trustee in the wire-reinforced window opposite his desk and he figured out the conversation was for his benefit.
He decided to play along.
"You have a point” Horton conceded. “Used to be the guys from Detroit were tough. Do you remember ‘Little Jimmy Wilson’?” he asked.
Little Jimmy was 6’-8”, weighed 350 and had fists like anvils.
Stepanic shook her head in dismay. “I am glad Little Jimmy and Tiny Hanks were never here at the same time.”
“Yeah, that was back when kids from Detroit were tough and would fight at the drop-of-a-hat. I sure am glad they aren’t like that now.” Stepanic said.
The trustee quietly let himself out.
Horton had to admire Stepanic’s style. The jail was in the red for budget and taking on prisoners from other jurisdictions was profitable. It was even more profitable when they were in solitary since the billing rate was three times that for general population.
Stepanic’s short conversation virtually guaranteed the punks from Chicago were going to get in fights with the Detroit inmates and spend a lot of their time in solitary.
*
Frank went into the kid's room.
He normally didn't do follow-up on patients but he had 9 hours invested in this 'John Doe'. Frank had been just about to clock-out when the car lurched to a stop outside the Emergency Room ambulance doors..
By Frank's standards, the surgery was a rousing success. The kid did not die on the table.
The story was that the kid had been at a demonstration and been hit by a car.
Frank wasn't born yesterday. Vehicle/pedestrian accidents can crush hips but they don't leave the rest of the body unscathed. They also don't scatter bone fragments and chunks of lead and copper through the core of the body.
"I am the doctor who stitched you back together 'John' " Frank said.
"How bad is it?" the kid asked.
"I don't candy-coat things. I deal in truth. Why don't we start with your real name?" Frank said bluntly.
The kid looked away.
"How bad is it?" the kid asked again.
"Unless there are some advances in regrowing nerves, you will never walk again" Frank said.
"Your lower bowel was shredded. There wasn't enough of your lower bowel left for me to re-attach to your rectum so you will be crapping into a bag until you find a surgeon who is willing to risk reattaching" Frank continued mercilessly.
Frank had always had a calloused bedside manner. The recent troubles had grown callouses on his callouses. His outlook on life had not improved with this particular, stubborn kid.
"You are lucky to be alive. You missed the Golden Hour. We could have done more if you had been able to get to the hospital quicker." Frank drilled him. Based on the condition of the raw flesh, dried and oxidized, the kid had been shot almost two hours before he hit the E-room. Whoever brought him in kept him alive with fluid extenders and O2. Frank was surprised the kid was not brain-damaged.
"Anything else?" the kid asked, bitterly.
"Yeah, you don't have to worry about sending your kids to college. I had to remove your testicles while debriding traumatized tissue" Frank said.
"Are you sure you don't want to tell my your name? You need your family at a time like this" Frank said.
"My name is Draik Anderson" the kid said.
* This is where the story departs from "fiction" and becomes "fantasy". Jails are short-term incarcerations and rarely/never have inmates doing trustee work. Also, no warden would ever encourage fights because guards get hurt breaking them up. In normal times it would never happen.
So Draik was apparently one of the group on the roof of Harry's, or perhaps was shot while throwing a Molotov cocktail. He got what he deserved...but damn! Will never walk again, will need to wear a colostomy bag for the great of his days, and his testicles are gone. It would be more merciful if he had not survived.
ReplyDeletePeople who are not of the gun culture have no concept of the horrific damage that bullets can wreak on the human body. High powered battle rifles are not called weapons of war for nothing. They maim and kill by design.
If the left gets the civil war they are agitating for, they have no idea of the literal carnage that is likely to be visited upon them. Once that genie is out of the bottle all bets are off.
With that much damage, unless he's running hot-and-cold antibiotics for a month, there's a chance that him waking up is his rebound period before he crashes permanently.
DeleteThat Golden Hour? When applied to gut injuries, it's a very real thing. Blown-up gut has a way of poisoning the body rather rapidly once all the protective barriers around the organs and the gutsack itself are intermingled by severe damage.
And the real kicker? After the Golden Hour, if they can't get that guy clean and sealed 100%, then most likely you're looking at a 3 day view of a very painful death, as organ after organ fails and further adds it's poison load to the failing body.
There is a very good reason why, back in the days before good surgery and good antibiotics, having a perforating gut wound was reason enough for someone to slip 9" of mercy into your skull. A good test was either strong onion or garlic soup. Feed it to the patient, then smell the belly wounds. If onion or garlic is smelled, literally stab him in the eye, because that's more merciful than dying of sepsis.
In Draik's case, seriously, he would have to be hooked up to some serious antibiotics, have his belly flushed regularly, and periodically someone goes inside and checks for leakage or dead tissue.
In a heavy trauma triage situation, he'd literally be given a black card. A 'get-out-of-life' card, and some trauma medic would slip him a lethal dose of something if the rest of the medical system was already stressed to the full, like, oh, say, during riots where so many are injured and maimed.
And surviving? If he doesn't run across an antibiotic-resistant bug that kills him... well... antibiotics at the level that are required to keep today's people alive in today's hospital environment full of resistant bugs, the very antibiotics will further damage him, with hearing loss, loss of taste, loss of smell, even eyesight affected by the super-meds used to combat the modern super-bugs.
And in a prison hospital, or county jail hospital ward, the chance of him getting the extreme care he needs to stay alive are... limited. Even worse after said mass-trauma incident. Especially since Night of the Old Guys - Part 2 is going to leave a whole heap of new patients to overstrain the already strained system.
Sublte note here - most local hospital systems can't handle mass casualties at the 'hundreds of severe cases' level. Most systems can't handle 'tens of severe cases' well. Hundreds of critical cases? Nope, not happening. Even in big cities, the systems are already strained by the normal high levels of sick and casualties, and further strained by ever-increasing cuts to staff and capabilities (like, oh, that Level 1 trauma center... those things are friggin expensive to keep staffed and certified at the highest levels. Many of these trauma centers have been decertified or lowered in classification levels since the passing of Obamacare.)(yeah, real slick there, Obamski.)
There's a reason one of the most used units in any state's Nat Guard units is the Medical unit, capable of setting up MASH type field hospitals in 12-24 hours, once called up, which may take up to 24 hours. So for the first 48 hours of a mass casualty incident, only local hospitals can provide full support, and slowly Nat Guard units come on line.
One of the reasons for the long time to set up is inevitably, the mass-casualty incident will occur far away from the home armory of the med unit. Like... Florida. Even if the unit starts in Orlando, it's 8-10 hours at military speed to the panhandle or to the start of the Keys.
The very first Blue-face "Uncle Timmy" shot was deliberately shot in the hip to not leave a blood-plume pointing back a "Mama's" house.
DeleteDraik could have been the first guy Tim shot. Time is weird in a hospital. This could have been Frank's second shift after repairing the kid. Likely, the first shift back the kid would have been too out-of-it to talk.
I'm with Beans. I watched for 5 days as my SIL died of sepsis. My children are under orders to not let me die like that. A .22 behind the left ear is kinder, if it can be done.
DeleteBlue-face #1 got a dustoff which (to me) isn't consistent with 2 hours of attempted treatment before getting him to an ER, and the orchiectomy might have been from a second hit.
DeleteNever mind battle rifles. Remember that this was inflicted with a garden variety, cheapo bolt action hunting rifle with, no doubt, an equally garden variety, cheapo scope. And that sounds like what the old guys dealt their damage with as well. Although I'd contend that a bunch of VN vets would be as likely to be armed with AR's and M1-A's. The VN vets I know sure would, but then I know a bunch of maniacs.;-)
DeleteTim, the narrator, had an economy hunting rifle because that is all he could find. Over the course of the engagements, he remembered his training and learned to engage at a distance most suitable for his equipment set vs. the bad-guys.
DeleteNeighborhood defense was a hodge-podge of arms. Alex's force which included the guys on the berm were largely armed with modern, sporting rifles (that is, AR-15 pattern rifles)
The old guys were from the VFW post just west of the neighborhood. The image was "borrowed" from the bulletin board. The video was propaganda to kick the Marxists in the teeth.
One of the old-geezers was involved in the altercation since he lived in the neighborhood.
Stay tuned...
Rick T: Blue-face Number One was shot in Lansing. Frank works in a hospital in Kalamazoo which is 75 miles away by vehicle.
DeleteSince the chopper is a very high-value asset, the wounded Blue-face would be transferred to a private vehicle outside the congested area and then transported to a large, off-site hospital capable of handling that kind of trauma.
The vehicle would need to have the interior stripped down to metal to get the blood (and later the smell) out.
The two hours came from fifteen minutes to dust-off, fiddle-farting at unload, ten miles of city driving and seventy-five miles on the freeway. Furthermore, Frank was estimating so his estimate could be off more than an hour either way.
Great observation, though. Had the chopper dropped him off at Sparrow in Lansing it would have been less than five minutes flight-time but there would then be a hard-link between the GSW and the chopper.
Which can another propaganda kick in their pants... "Keeping the chopper quiet was more important than Draik's health or even survival. What do you think they will do for a mere foot soldier like you?"
DeleteActually, most jails hold criminals sentenced to a year or less, so there are trusees amongst the sentenced. Criminals sentenced to a year and a day or more go to prison.
ReplyDeleteSo in any jail, there are those who are awaiting sentencing and those who have been sentenced. Which makes for a weird vibe as sentenced criminals have more status than unsentenced criminals. And those unsentenced criminals with previous criminal sentences are higher up than just plain brand-new waiting for conviction and sentencing.
It's a weird thing. There really should be one facility for not-sentenced yet, a facility for short-term-sentencing and then big-boys' prison. But most counties and states don't have the money to segregate the population into three different facilities.
Rumor is, in Canada, that the Antifa bimbo's are renting infants to haul to protests as a get out of jail cards.
ReplyDeleteAnybody who uses a child as camouflage needs to lose their parental rights and if they're not a parent then they need to treated as badly as a pedophile. js
ReplyDeleteIts a shame about Draik but fortunately the girls seem smart enough to learn from his circumstances. I wonder if this crippling injury will improve his maturity or make the entitlement attitude worse.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes... He'll 'live' for versions of living...
ReplyDeleteTalk about bedside manner . . .
ReplyDelete