[Rumori] Fwd: [deletetheborder] NYT: Hispanic Woman, Left in Cell, Goes Four Days Without Food/Water in AR

[Steev Hise]

...originally arrested for selling pirated DVDs and CDs at a flea  
market....

Begin forwarded message:
>
> March 12, 2008
> Arkansas Woman, Left in Cell, Goes 4 Days With No Food or Water
> By ADAM NOSSITER
> A woman was locked for four days in a tiny holding cell in a  
> northern Arkansas courthouse, forgotten by the authorities and left  
> without food or water, the local Sheriff’s Department said Tuesday.
> The woman, Adriana Torres-Flores, 38, a longtime illegal immigrant  
> from Mexico, slept on the floor with only a shoe for a pillow, and  
> with nothing to drink except her own urine, The Arkansas Democrat- 
> Gazette reported. There was no bathroom in the cell.
> A bailiff had apparently forgotten that he placed Ms. Torres- 
> Flores, a mother of three, in the cell last Thursday, and simply  
> left her in the empty courthouse, in Fayetteville, over the  
> weekend, said the chief deputy of the Washington County Sheriff’s  
> Department, Jay Cantrell. A snowstorm meant that there were far  
> fewer people than usual working at the courthouse on Friday.
> “He just flat forgot about her,” Mr. Cantrell said, adding that the  
> bailiff, Jarrod Hankins, had been placed on administrative leave,  
> having been on the job a few months. “It was just a horrible  
> mistake,” Mr. Cantrell said.
> When the bailiff opened the door of the cell on Monday, Ms. Torres- 
> Flores was lying on the floor, the deputy said. The cell typically  
> holds prisoners for no more than an hour, measures 9 feet by 10  
> feet and contains only a metal table with benches that swing out  
> from it. It has a steel door and concrete walls.
> “From what I understand — it sounds horrible to say — it was an  
> oversight,” said Nathan Lewis, Ms. Torres-Flores’s lawyer. “No one  
> is walking around there Friday, and she just got left in there over  
> the weekend.”
> “There’s no water, there’s no food,” Mr. Lewis added. “She  
> basically said it was really bad.”
> She was taken to a hospital and treated, and is now recovering at  
> home, Mr. Lewis said, “very worn out from the whole ordeal.”
> Ms. Torres-Flores has been in the United States for 19 years, and  
> her children were born here, though she is in the country  
> illegally, said her immigration lawyer, Roy Petty. Mr. Petty said  
> she had been among numerous people arrested at a flea market on  
> charges related to the sale of pirated DVDs and CDs.
> She went to court Thursday for a hearing on a plea agreement over  
> the charges, but decided to plead not guilty. She was then placed  
> in the holding cell for transfer to the county jail, since the new  
> plea was contrary to the terms of her original release on bond.  
> Instead, she was forgotten.
> “Everybody is backing away from it as fast as they can,” Mr. Petty  
> said. “Frankly, that’s how they treat Hispanics down here. They  
> treat Hispanics like cattle, like less than human.”
> Mr. Cantrell, the deputy, said there would be an investigation.  
> “There was no malicious intent,” he said. “The whole thing is  
> terrible.”
> In Little Rock, Rita Sklar, executive director of the A.C.L.U. of  
> Arkansas, said the organization was very concerned.
> “There certainly have been a lot of problems in that corner of the  
> state, in terms of police treatment of Latinos and bigoted  
> statements by government officials,” Ms. Sklar said. “We’re looking  
> into the general problem in northwest Arkansas of racial profiling  
> and abuse of power.”
>
>
>

Steev Hise | steev at detritus.net | http://detritus.net/steev
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"A painter paints his picture on canvas. But musicians paint
their pictures on silence."
             -Leopold Stokowski, reprimanding a talkative audience