A homeless woman in Kentucky was cited by police and had her mattress confiscated and destroyed as she went into labor on the streets of Louisville, local media reported.
Body camera footage obtained by Kentucky Public Radio from the city police force showed Lt Caleb Stewart walking up to a pregnant woman under an overpass in the city’s downtown area.
The visibly pregnant woman, whom the radio station is not naming, told the officer that her water had broken. “I might be going into labor, is that OK?”
“I’m leaking out,” she added.
The woman told Stewart her husband was calling an ambulance but Stewart also called one for her. As the woman walked to the street to wait for help, Stewart demanded that she stop.
“Am I being detained?” she asked the police officer.
“Yes, you’re being detained,” he replied. “You’re being detained because you’re unlawfully camping.”
Kentucky has a new state law that bans street camping, meaning no person may sleep or set up camp on public property, including sidewalks. Homelessness rights advocates say the law does little to solve the social problems faced by the unhoused and leads to increasing interactions with law enforcement.
Stewart walked back to his car to write the citation as city workers put the woman’s mattress into a garbage truck. The camera caught Stewart remarking to himself: “So I don’t for a second believe that this woman is going into labor.”
The woman gave birth later that day, according to her attorney, the public defender Ryan Dischinger. The family is now in a shelter.
“The reality for her, and for anyone who’s homeless in Kentucky, is that they’re constantly and unavoidably breaking this law,” Dischinger told the radio station. “What she needed was help and compassion and instead she was met with violence.”
