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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-032206dump_lat,0,5616475.story?coll=la-home-headlines From the Los Angeles Times Video Said to Capture Skid Row Dumping By Cara Mia DiMassa Times Staff Writer
2:00 PM PST, March 22, 2006
Authorities released a videotape this afternoon of what they say is the dumping of a 63-year-old woman on the streets of skid row.
The videotape, recorded by security cameras outside the Union Rescue Mission entrance on San Pedro Street on Monday afternoon, shows a taxicab pulling a U-turn and then driving out of view. A few seconds later, a woman wearing a hospital gown and no shoes walks from the same direction, wandering in the street and on the sidewalk for about three minutes before a Union Rescue Mission staff person escorts her inside the mission.
LAPD Capt. Andrew Smith said he believes the taxi took the woman, a 63-year-old Gardena resident, downtown against her will after she was discharged from Kaiser Permanente Bellflower on Monday.
Smith said the woman told him that she did not know why she had been sent downtown. It is unclear who paid for the taxi trip, or whether it was sanctioned by the hospital.
Officials from Kaiser were not immediately available for comment.
Andy Bales, president of the Union Rescue Mission, said he had spoken with the woman, who is now staying in the mission's guest area. He said mission staff members watched as she was dropped off by the taxi "40 or 50 feet from the front door…. [The driver] didn't get out. She simply started walking down the street.
"I'm just concerned about a society that would drop its most vulnerable onto the streets of skid row," said Bales. "It really troubles me."
The issue of dumping people in the skid row area surfaced in September, when Smith publicly complained that outside law enforcement agencies regularly had brought criminals downtown after they had served jail sentences. Smith cited one case in which he saw two sheriff's deputies take a man in handcuffs from their squad car and deposit him on the street.
In addition, LAPD officials have said that they often see people with hospital wristbands on skid row, often appearing ill and sometimes wearing colostomy bags.
City officials have said that they are looking into the practice of dumping, and examining the underlying issues of why people are brought downtown.
Late last year, the LAPD issued a report naming a handful of hospitals that officials believe had dropped off patients on skid row. The city attorney's office said that it was warning hospitals across Los Angeles that they were the potential targets of an investigation into the practice of dumping patients on skid row. It said the probe could result in criminal charges or lawsuits if hospitals dumped patients against their will.
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