Police 'Showdown' Averted ['Team of State Agents Were En Route to Seize Terri']

Miami Herald ^ | Sat, Mar. 26, 2005 | CAROL MARBIN MILLER

[West Coast Conservative]

Hours after a judge ordered that Terri Schiavo was not to be removed from her hospice, a team of state agents were en route to seize her and have her feeding tube reinserted -- but they stopped short when local police told them they would enforce the judge's order, The Herald has learned.

Agents of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement told police in Pinellas Park, the small town where Schiavo lies at Hospice Woodside, on Thursday that they were on the way to take her to a hospital to resume her feeding.

For a brief period, local police, who have officers at the hospice to keep protesters out, prepared for what sources called ``a showdown.''

In the end, the squad from the FDLE and the Department of Children & Families backed down, apparently concerned about confronting local police outside the hospice.

''We told them that unless they had the judge with them when they came, they were not going to get in,'' said a source with the local police.

''The FDLE called to say they were en route to the scene,'' said an official with the city police who requested anonymity. ``When the sheriff's department and our department told them they could not enforce their order, they backed off.''

The incident,known only to a few and related to The Herald by three different sources involved in Thursday's events, underscores the intense emotion and murky legal terrain that the Schiavo case has created. It also shows that agencies answering directly to Gov. Jeb Bush had planned to use a wrinkle in Florida law that would have allowed them to legally get around the judge's order. The exception in the law allows public agencies to freeze a judge's order whenever an agency appeals it.

[kralcmot]

"who would be forcing that civil war?"

"those trying to stop it"

if they fire the first shot, yes. IMHO

this is not why we kill people. if we think that the justice system is flawed, we work to fix it, and believe me, we are. judical appointments more favorable to our beliefs will be approved. its going to take some time, a lot of time, and we will lose Terri long before we can declare victory. this is one battle in a long war. it will be seen as a pivotal one, to be sure, but we have a long way to go.

i know you want to fight, but this is not the time. IMHO.

[DoughtyOne]

Is that three fingers I see sticking through the surface? Guy, you're not thinking.

[DoughtyOne]

So would I.

[Fitzcarraldo]

Jeb may need a solid attempted murder case to move in.

[carl in alaska]

Well I agree that he did not develop a good plan and strategy for this confrontation. He's in a big hole now politically that will be tough to climb out of.

[Antoninus]

Put the blame where it is deserved, with Greer, Terri's so called "husband" and his co-horts in crime death squad. To put the blame on Gov. Bush is anti-American and disgusting.

I do put the blame on those particular soulless ghouls. But the fact remains that Jeb Bush especially, had (and has) the power to step in right now. He's refusing to exercise it because, in my opinion, he's afraid. The immediate result of this refusal to act is that an innocent woman dies of starvation. Such lack of action on the part of an elected official is the very definition of cowardice.

Sorry, that's just how I see it.

[Windcatcher]

I hate to say it, but short of massive political pressure at the county level, I don't see any more legal options for Jeb and company. At some point there needs to be a strategy for ensuring that Terri's passing doesn't go unremembered or unpunished.

1. Is this judge appointed or elected? If he is elected, when is he next up for reelection? What is the voter breakdown in that county (that is, how realistic is removing him?) Just how difficult can this judge's life become?

2. Is there evidence to show possible criminal wrongdoing on the part of MS and/or other interested parties? I don't mean pipe-dream nonsense, but actual evidence. I'd settle for a nice, long trial that made his life h*ll and made him burn up the ill-gotten gains from the malpractice suit. The SOB shouldn't be allowed to spend it on a house/car/vacation.

Any other suggestions?

[DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet]

Is that so? I've been reading tons of constructive suggestions on this forum. I've heard them on the radio and seen them on the TV.

Constructive suggestions? Like...charging Terri Schiavo with an unsolved murder that occurred during the time she was a minor, so that she would be kept alive? Declaring her an enemy combatant? Making her an Israeli citizen?

Between that stuff and the scapegoating of the Bush brothers, I can't share the opinion that much here is "constructive" at all these days.

[DoughtyOne]

So would I.

BTW, there should be ten million glasses of water outside that nursing home tomorrow and every day until Terry passes.

[Fitzcarraldo]

I'm sure jeb is working on Greer as we speak.

[SolomoninSouthDakota]

Nothing changes with you. Now I'm a troll.

[ModernDayCato]

Don't you find it ironic (and actually laughable) that they've destroyed the same future we're always crowing about?

What disturbs me the most is that the real evildoers on the left are using Terri Schiavo to send us a message...the message is that THEY decide (through judges) when life begins and ends, and what is right and what is wrong.

That pisses me off tremendously, but it's also going to have serious consequences of BIBLICAL proportion.

[tomahawk]

Probate Judge Greer was elected, not appointed.

He has usurped powers he does not have (preventing the Governor from enforcing the law by threat of force) and he needs to be held accountable.

He violated the separation of powers, and judges now effectively run this country.

[Darkwolf377]

"Then if the courts say that your wife shoud die, whether she's truly brain dead or not, we'll just conveniently let them have her. Right? Nice thinkin there..."

I'd answer except you seem to just invent my opinion from whole cloth and sit there with your silly 'tude. Your brain can't fit a concept in it other than silly absolutism, so I'll leave you to your goofy fantasies. If you ever crack a history book, or learn thing one about the US constitution, let me know. I won't be waiting, you seem to enjoy tossing your boring cliches and getting your kicks that way; serious men who make the real life decisions that we live by don't have the luxury of your armchair warrior bravado.

[northernlightsII]

The other thing is under the DCF emergency removal procedures,DCF would have had to file for a hearingww/in 24 hrs of removal,which would have been today,and Terri would have had to be returned to that hospice. I don't think that considering her condition she would have survived that much trauma.

[bjs1779]

We get the point, bjs1779 - America is now full of Nazis. You don't need to keep repeating yourself everywhere...

Starvation was legal in Germany - circa 1940's

Nazi's toast starvation at Buchenwald - 1944

Stravation is now state scantioned in America - circa 2005

A similar cast of characters

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GIBBS LAW FIRM 1-727-399-8300
DCF 1-850-487-1111
LEGISLATIVE AFFAIRS 1-850-488-5000
WHITE HOUSE SWITCHBOARD 1-202-456-1414

[McGavin999]

We are devoid of testicles.

Speak for yourself.

Oh shoot, you beat me to it. I was going to add that I noticed the guy was sitting in front of his computer instead of showing us what a testosterone invused macho man he is by not being there at the hospice rescuing Terri himself.

[Fitzcarraldo]

I have a hunch Jeb will move soon and Greer will stand aside.

[NorCalRepub]

well I was just answering the phrase about life and liberty without prejudice......so you are saying there are exception......I for one don't like this at all......I always though numb nuts should have given up custody to the parents...but I really draw the line when some decide to take the law in their own hands....what I feel in my heart about the case has no bearing......every damned court ruled agains them, like it or not, they have followed their due course....my opinion is not on her death on this thread but what others are willing to do.......and asking the cops or whatever no to enforce the law is just too far out for me

[carl in alaska]

You could be right about old Solomon.