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U.S.|Homeless Woman Going Into Labor Is Cited for Camping Violation
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/21/us/kentucky-woman-pregnant-homeless-police.html
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Body-camera footage shows an officer from the Louisville Metro Police Department in Kentucky detain the woman, who gave birth later that day.
Dec. 21, 2024, 2:51 p.m. ET
A homeless woman said that she was going into labor in Louisville, Ky., when a police officer gave her a citation under a law that bans unauthorized public camping, according to her lawyer and body-camera footage released on Thursday.
The woman, who was in her early 30s and who was not identified by the authorities or her lawyer, was taken by ambulance to a hospital and gave birth to a boy that same day.
Her citation came as Kentucky became one of at least three states to ban homeless camping this year, in addition to nearly 60 localities that also did. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a law enacted by Grants Pass, Ore., banning homeless people from sleeping outdoors.
In Louisville, the woman was standing next to a box spring and a mattress on the ground under an elevated concrete structure when Lt. Caleb Stewart of the Louisville Metro Police Department approached her on Sept. 27, the body-camera footage shows.
She could be heard saying that she was losing amniotic fluid and “might be going into labor,” and that her husband had left to call an ambulance. She began to walk away when the lieutenant told her to stop.
She asked if she was being detained, and Lieutenant Stewart confirmed that she was. He called an ambulance. Footage later showed him narrating the events in his vehicle, during which he said that he “wasn’t seeing what she was saying.”
