Posted on 02/26/2012 8:50:05 AM PST by smoothsailing
Tim Blight
February 26, 2012
Douglas Kennedy, Fox News correspondent and son of the late Robert F. Kennedy, has been charged with assault after a 7 January incident in a New York hospital.
2 nurses at the Mt Kisco hospital alleged that Kennedy became violent after they tried to prevent him from taking his newborn son Bo outside of the ward. Kennedy says he wanted to "get some fresh air" and had already received permission from other nurses on duty, Reuters reports.
The confrontation began after nurses issued a "code pink", an alert that someone is attempting to abduct a baby. The incident was partially caught on surveillance camera; although obscured by a doorway, nurse Cari Luciano can be seen falling to the ground.
Luciano stated that Kennedy "raised his right foot and with tremendous force kicked [her] in the pelvis area". Another nurse, Anna Lane, accused the New York-based journalist of twisting her arm, although this appears off screen on the surveillance video.
Kennedy has been charged with harassment and endangering the welfare of a child.
Kennedy and his wife have labeled accusations "absurd" in an interview with NBC New York. His lawyer, Robert Gottlieb, called the altercation the result of "aggressive and grossly inappropriate behavior by two nurses".
"Whatever Douglas did came about only because the nurse was lunging to grab his child from his arms. What Douglas did was simply to protect his baby," he added.
A date for the hearing has not yet been announced.
Obviously, you have not watched the video.
The nurse who was kicked did not even touch Kennedy.
I see no aggressive action by the nurses against Kennedy- except they took control of the elevator panel and a nurse stood in front of the stairway.
You cannot take a newborn out of a nursery to the outside until discharge. It is dangerous to the baby- hospitals have germs, and dangerous to the other infants if the baby was exposed to a virus while on his dads expedition.
If they did not want to obey the rules of the hospital, they should have delivered at home.
If you advocate for his behavior-then your words speak for itself on your position regarding women in this society.
Kennedy could have handled this in an adult manner, as previous posters have said. To defend assault is sick.
The nurses were right. No hospital allows this. If Kennedy wanted to go walking around outside with a newborn in his arms, the wife ahould have had a home birthing.
I am sure alcohol was involved in some way.
If Kennedy really ran down the stairs with a newborn baby as the police report states, then there’s a real problem here. That’s an extremely dangerous thing to do. But if this whole thing is a setup, then there must be punishment for unjustly accusing Kennedy.
.......................................
According to a Mount Kisco, N.Y. police report obtained by NBC New York, Douglas Kennedy, 44, took his baby from the newborn unit of Northern Westchester Hospital on Jan. 7, against the instructions of hospital staff who told him the infant needed to stay there. The arrest was on misdemeanor charges.
Kennedy and his wife, Molly, disputed the accusations in a statement to NBC New York, saying “these allegations are absurd.”
The nurse in charge of the unit, Anna Margaret Lane, said in a deposition that Kennedy wanted to take the child “to get fresh air” that evening. As he tried to leave, he was accompanied by a doctor from the hospital’s emergency room, identified in court papers as “Dr. Haydock,” later determined to be Dr. Timothy Haydock, a longtime family friend.
While the nursing staff sought to get Kennedy to return the baby to his bassinet, Haydock reportedly encouraged Kennedy to walk with the baby by telling nurses that he was with him, according to Lane’s deposition.
Kennedy ignored the pleas of the nursing staff and carried the newborn — identified in court papers as “B.K.” — to the elevator, police said. As the nursing staff tried to calm him and dissuade him from leaving the hospital, Kennedy turned and walked toward a stairwell leading to the outside of the hospital.
Lane blocked the doorway, “placing both hands on the doorknob” to prevent Kennedy from leaving, police said. Kennedy grabbed the nurse by her left wrist and twisted it to that he could pass into the stairwell, police said.
The baby’s head “began to move from side to side, and in an attempt to stabilize the baby’s head, nurse Cari Maleman Luciano reached toward the infant’s head,” police said.
“Instinctively as a nurse, I raised both my arms toward the neck of the baby to steady the violent shaking of the baby’s head and neck,” Luciano told investigators in a deposition.
While holding the child in his right arm, Kennedy kicked Luciano in the pelvis with his right foot, knocking her backward onto the floor, police said.
As he did this, Kennedy fell onto the floor with the baby in his arms. Kennedy then got up and ran “down the stairs with the infant until he was stopped by security and escorted back to the infant’s room,” the police report said.
The police report did not say whether the infant was harmed in the altercation.
The statement to NBC New York from Kennedy and his wife said there was no crime committed.
“The nurse had no right to attempt to grab our child out of his father’s arms and I, Douglas, was shocked and appalled when she did so,” the statement said.
Haydock said in a statement to NBC New York that Kennedy, whom he has known for more than 40 years, was not putting his healthy baby at risk by seeking to take him for a walk outside.
“I witnessed the incident and I can state unequivocally that the nurses were the only aggressors,” he said. “To charge Mr. Kennedy with a crime is simply incomprehensible to me.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2851097/posts
I have been assaulted by clients on more than one occasion-usually when I busted them for attempting to defraud their workers comp insurance carrier, or the company I worked for. I yelled for help, defended myself physically, wrote my report to the proper people and let it go-no chip on my shoulder-it was part of my job. I got tired of it, so I don’t do that any more for a living.
The ER physician has no legal standing in a nursery.
The nursery nurses, the OBGyn, and the neonatologist are above the ER physician in the chain of command.
If the Nursery nurse, the neonatologist, and the OBGyn were in the ER, then the ER physician is at the top of the chain of command.
Therefore, what the ER physician has to say about policies and procedures in the nursery is irrelevant. You cannot get testimony from him as a physician witness, only witness testimony as a friend.
Touched a nerve, didn’t I?
I wonder why?
Hmmm....
If the physician is not a neonatologist,or an OB, with priviledges as that hospital- then his opinion means squat.
The nursery nurse has more power than the ER physician in that situation.
I'm glad you asked Ernie, here is the entire article that we are commenting on:
Douglas Kennedy, Fox News correspondent and son of the late Robert F. Kennedy, has been charged with assault after a 7 January incident in a New York hospital.
2 nurses at the Mt Kisco hospital alleged that Kennedy became violent after they tried to prevent him from taking his newborn son Bo outside of the ward. Kennedy says he wanted to "get some fresh air" and had already received permission from other nurses on duty, Reuters reports.
The confrontation began after nurses issued a "code pink", an alert that someone is attempting to abduct a baby. The incident was partially caught on surveillance camera; although obscured by a doorway, nurse Cari Luciano can be seen falling to the ground.
L Luciano stated that Kennedy "raised his right foot and with tremendous force kicked [her] in the pelvis area". Another nurse, Anna Lane, accused the New York-based journalist of twisting her arm, although this appears off screen on the surveillance video.
Kennedy has been charged with harassment and endangering the welfare of a child.
Kennedy and his wife have labeled accusations "absurd" in an interview with NBC New York. His lawyer, Robert Gottlieb, called the altercation the result of "aggressive and grossly inappropriate behavior by two nurses".
"Whatever Douglas did came about only because the nurse was lunging to grab his child from his arms. What Douglas did was simply to protect his baby," he added.
A date for the hearing has not yet been announced.
Have your say: submit a comment below.
Thanks, kaila, I wasn’t aware of any of that. So Haydock had no authority in the situation and was merely acting as a family friend.
Yes.
If he has priviledges at that hospital, and he encouraged Kennedy to take the baby, he could get into trouble with hospital administration.
He had no business trying to pull his weight in the nursery. He was out of his field of expertise, was not trained in policy or procedures of that unit.
The nurses could have told him to get lost, and he would have to comply.
Just because you have MD after your name, does not mean that you have ultimate power in other units not in your work enviroment.
Sounds like you have a hate on for doctors. Oh wait, did I accuse you unjustly? Guess it must be having been accused of advocating violence against women by some troll claiming to be a nurse.
It "establishes" that Haydock was with Kennedy and the baby initially. It makes no mention of Haydock's whereabouts while Kennedy was in the elevator, heading for the stairwell door, running down the stairs, being stopped by security, or being escorted back to the nursery. That was all "established" too. But it's a police report based on the nurse statements, so what has really been established?
I'm kidnapping YOUR baby from the maternity ward and I'm confronted by several nurses who don't know me from Adam and I use the excuse "I was given permission from the hospital" to take "my" baby outside for some fresh air......
And YOU expect the hospital staff to accept that explanation carte blanche without any challenge whatsoever to me and a demand that I produce identification as to whether or not I am the true father of that baby?
Take your head out of your ass, the lack of oxygen is affecting your thought process.
This ER physician would get torn apart on cross examination.
All the prosecuting attorney will need to ask if he is board certified in neonatology, OB Gyn, or Pediatrics.
The answer would be “no”.
Then the prosecuting attorney will ask him when was the last time he practiced in a nursery. The answer will most likely be “20 years ago when I was in medical school.”
Then the prosecuting attorney will get a nursery nurse with a huge amount of credentials- with a whole bunch of alphabet digits after her name, a board certified neonatologist,a pediatrician, an ObGyn and ask them ( on the witness stand) what are the risks of removing an infant from the nursery?. They will make this ER doc look bad.
Then the final nail on this ER docs credibility would be to show him the policies and procedures of the nursery unit, and ask him if he was aware of them, and did he sign off on those procedures.You see, when you are an employee, you sign you name to the procedures specific to the unit you work on during orientation.
The answer would be “no”. He would be discredited in the eyes of the jury.Anything he said after that would look suspect.That is why I take no credence to his version of the story.
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