Medric Cecil Mills, Jr died after being denied medical service by DC Firefighters. On January 25th 77-year old Medric Cecil Mills went into cardiac arrest at a shopping center in Northeast Washington, DC directly across the street from Engine Company 26. Bystanders rushed to the fire station frantically seeking help and were denied and turned away after being advised to simply call 911 by trained, emergency medical personnel on duty. After making the call for an ambulance that never came, again bystanders returned to the nearby fire station and were again denied assistance while Mr. Mills still laid dying on the sidewalk. It wasn’t until minutes later that a police officer, who happened upon the scene, was able to flag down an unassigned ambulance passing by the busy street to transport Mr. Mills to MedStar Washington Hospital Center where he was tragically and possibly avoidably pronounced dead nearly an hour after being denied emergency medical service by trained personnel.
This is a tragic event that clearly screams for a guilty verdict in a wrongful death lawsuit against the city and the firing of those responsible for denying a dying man medical service, but currently, no one has been fired and the city has complete immunity from lawsuits in cases such as this. How is that possible in a so-called civil society you may ask? The answer is simple. It is called the Public-Duty Doctrine. It states:
The public duty doctrine holds that a governmental entity cannot be held liable for failing to meet a duty that is owed to the public in general. Liability can only be created when a special duty to a specific person is breached causing injury. A special duty requires the creation of a relationship between the governmental entity and the victim, most commonly by governmental actors making assurances to the victim knowing that the victim will be reasonably relying on the assurances. When the victim does rely upon the assurances a special duty is created. Simply calling 911 is not enough to create a special duty as the duty to respond to 911 calls is a duty owed to the general public, not to any specific individual.
In other words, 911 is a joke. The city doesn’t owe a general duty to provide public services to an individual; the city, then, can’t be held liable for negligence. This effectively functions as a variation of sovereign immunity that precludes many suits against the government by private citizens. The Public-Duty Doctrine is not unique to the disenfranchised citizens of the District of Columbia who are denied voting rights in Congress. This unjust law exists in various forms all across America.
It wasn’t until after World War II when a US bomber piloted crashed into the Empire State Building that the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) was enacted in 1946 and for the first time, gave American citizens the right to sue the federal government. However, the FTCA exempts, among other things, claims based upon the performance, or failure to perform a “discretionary function or duty” which makes room for the sovereign immunity of the Public-Duty Doctrine.
These fascists policies further exacerbates the inevitable inequities between the haves and the have nots, between government and citizen and erases any traces of a line between government and corporations. Denying private citizens the right to redress grievances by their duly “elected” government based upon the sound business decision to prevent the self-exposure to lawsuits is ultimately highlighting the unique phenomenon of municipalities operating as profit driven businesses only accountable to the enrichment of bondholders. The government has publicly acknowledge that is not obligated to provide service to the 99% in order to serve the financial interest of the 1%.
In DC, who is in the midst of a highly contested mayoral race with a progressive candidate running, a remote chance exists that informed voters can change the system regarding these injustices if they choose to do so. As for the nation, it is time we review the Declaration of Independence:
….Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, – That whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government….
911 is a joke, but the Public-Duty Doctrine is dead serious and we are in short supply of good Samaritans. #dosomething
Video: Special Report: Dying In The Streets Of DC
Video: Public Enemy – 911 Is A Joke
