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.

[Saundra Duffy]

Jeb Bush is now the GINO (governor in name only).

[Theodore R.]

No, this wasn't going to happen from the start because Cowardice is Forever!

[Theodore R.]

I'd say their county is now officially on Jeb's s**t list when it comes to state funding.

Not at all, and did you see how MRS belittled and attacked Jeb mercilessly on CNN? Poor Jeb doesn't know what happened: I never realized how clueless he is.

[Archon of the East]

The death of brain tissue generally occurs as a result of lack of oxygen to the brain or direct trauma. And your right there are reports that say her cardiac enzymes where normal and no death to heart tissue (heart attack, cardiac infarction)occurred. I have still as of last night heard doctors say it was a lack of oxygen that caused her brain damage. However, if the reports are in fact true that no heart attack occurred then as a possibility:

The symptoms of low blood sugar range from mild to severe. Watch for the following symptoms that result from low blood sugar:

mild symptoms
dizziness
irritability
hunger
clumsiness, shakiness
sweating
fast heartbeat
moderate symptoms
confusion
headache
poor coordination
severe symptoms
seizures
unconsciousness
coma
death.

Obviously, an overdose of insulin will result in hypoglycemia. I like many here are suspicious, however I also believe that insulin is used by some people who are weight conscious to eliminate the excess sugar in their system.

[coloradan]

National Guard does.

[muawiyah]

There was never a need for guns at that event.

[muawiyah]

There's no evidence anybody involved in this was an Evangelical. Looked to me like a very Roman Catholic crowd.

Concerning the e-mail offer, was it serious? And the guy "stealing" a gun ~ he could have gotten one of those at the demonstration ~ from a cop ~ just like the fellow did two weeks ago in the courthouse in Atlanta.

BTW, a question for you, did either of those two people (out of a country of over 280,000,000) attend the demonstration?

[Gondring]

Oh, then who is the woman in the hospice who is being starved to death at court order. If "the court did not order anyone's death," then the nation must be caught in the grip of mass delusion, thinking that a woman is wasting away at the Pinellas hospice, on Judge Greer's orders.

I'm sure you've heard it before, but I think it's cool that we're both Churchill buffs. The difference is that I prefer Winston to Ward. If you don't mind, let's switch to Winston's style--i.e., facts.

I guess it isn't really happening, and all those SWAT cops outside the hospice are there because they thought it was a donut shop.

False dilemma. "Donut Shop" and "Order to Die" are not the only to options.

If Mrs. Schiavo were to ask for water, grab a burger, etc., she would not be stopped. What Greer has ordered is that nobody try to force-feed her, via tube or mouth. She is to be allowed to pass without interference.

Even if Mrs. Schiavo had left a living will/advance directive document, she would not be allowed to exercise her right to die peacefully...Florida law is still pretty barbaric. :-(

We all have rights, endowed by our Creator...
Right to Keep and Bear Arms
   Right to Discard and Not Bear Arms
Right to Free Speech
  Right Not to Speak Out (I wish more would practice THIS one!
Right to Practice A Religion
   Right Not to Practice A Religion
Right to Live
   Right to Die
Right to Own Property
   Right Not to Own Property
Et cetera

How grateful I am that we have Constitutional protection of these things, and compulsion is mostly something from other regimes.

[Gondring]

Yikes...my typo jumps off the page at me. "TWO" options. Forgot a ping, too.

[Gondring]

Yet another reason for the Republican party to ignore the Religious Right. Fair-weather friends who stab you in the back when the going gets tough are not what he needs. Politicians have to be held to standards, but requiring someone to break the law for you and act like a dictator is not what I want, thank you.

[billbears]

That's the problem when we play god. Sometime done the road you will see the state make that call.

And by your call to allow the national government to get involved you have opened the door to that very situation. When the Congress of these United States enacts a policy that determines where life ends and death begins, don't blame those that advocated the national government staying out of the issue. I would suggest you read Scalia's decision on Cruzan as he warns us on this.

People like you will obey because you are govern by a piece of paper & not of your heart.

People like me...well that's better than being called a Nazi as you called 'people like me' originally. No, I govern by the heart but I also understand if we are to give this decision of life and death to the national government, you better make sure the people elected to these positions of power have the same understanding as you do? Can you guarantee that? Thought not.

The constitutions guarantees LIFE, Liberty & Pursuit of Happiness

Actually it doesn't. At least not in the way the Republican talking points would have us believe. How it does guarantee life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is by limiting the national government in the lives of the citizens of the respective states. However since Republicans are in control it is now acceptable to use and expand government to answer 'our' concerns.

Its not what you or I define as LIFE but what the Almighty Creator determines. So if God wanted Terri in Heaven God being God, could have taken her while she was on the feeding tube

Just as it is not your decision to continue life beyond what our natural time is. You can not say beyond a shadow of a doubt that this isn't her time to go just as I can't say that it is. I just don't know. That is unless you know the mind of God and I wouldn't claim that for anything in the world

[muawiyah]

BTW, even if Terri was to ask for a burger and fries, the morphine drip stops her cold.

Did Greer order that? If so, he ordered that she be killed.

[muawiyah]

As I noted in an earlier thread, the federales have been directing us where to stand in line at the drugstore.

Have you not read the sign at your local pharmacy? It's not just the pharmacist telling you to be polite ~ there are some serious jackboots behind that one and you can be both fined and imprisoned for violating the rule to stand behind the little line on the floor!

[TAdams8591]

But I thought Jeb didn't have the power.

[Walkin Man]

Yet another reason for the Republican party to ignore the Religious Right. Fair-weather friends who stab you in the back when the going gets tough are not what he needs. Politicians have to be held to standards, but requiring someone to break the law for you and act like a dictator is not what I want, thank you.

I totally agree with your post!

[Gondring]

Well, no way to win... does she feel pain or not? Ask some, and they'd say "no morphine drip" would be cruel.

I guess it's a good idea to think these things through ahead of time, and make our desires known. For me, flood me with morphine. If I were to later want a burger and fries, I should have thought of that now... I'll take my chances and go for the peaceful route, if the ghouls would let me have it.

Finally, there are many life or death decisions made every day based on incomplete information. We can do only the best we can do...we are not perfect.

[Theodore R.]

Fair-weather friends who stab you in the back when the going gets tough are not what he needs.

Correction. Fair-weather friends who stab you in the back when the going gets tough is not what conservatives need.

[Theodore R.]

What are the powera of the governor of FL other than inspecting hurricane damage?

[RightMike]

You're certifably nuts, then. Yeah, lets lose police over one woman, get Jeb found in comtempt, thrown in jail, and have a civil war. Great idea.


Unbelieveable.