06 Dec Colorado Criminal Defense Lawyer Iris Eytan Contributes to The Atlantic Article
December 6, 2019
Washington, DC
Derrick Clay walked into a restaurant in Colorado, one afternoon in January 2017, to get a bite to eat. His card was declined. Clay, who has been diagnosed with psychosis and probable bipolar disorder, grabbed another customer’s order — a hamburger and French fries worth $11.
Somebody called the police. When they got there, Clay was “acting very irrationally,” talking about how the streetlights had cameras in them, according to the police report on the incident. An officer called an ambulance to conduct a welfare check on Clay. When the responders arrived, they loaded him in to bring him to the emergency department of the nearest hospital.
Clay had been on antipsychotics before and had experienced negative side effects, according to his mother, and later told her he thought he was going to be medicated. So when the paramedic tried to place a blood-pressure cuff on Clay, he panicked, punching him, according to the police report. The paramedic tried to subdue Clay, and, hearing the scuffling in back, the driver pulled
over. The paramedic tumbled out of the rear of the ambulance with Clay and, with the help of bystanders, wrestled him to the ground. The responders gave Clay a shot of something to knock him out and put him back in the vehicle. They continued on their journey.
Read the full article here.