Subject: Police Procedures For Suspects With AIDS Stir Controversy Date: Published: 9/18/87 132 lines Source: WALL STREET JOURNAL. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc. Safety vs. Civil Rights: Police Procedures For Suspects With AIDS Stir Controversy --- By Mark Robichaux Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal Earlier this summer in White Plains, N. Y., Westchester County Court officers refused to escort Arthur Brodie to the courtroom for a hearing because they didn't want to touch him. Mr. Brodie, charged with drug possession, was rumored to have acquired immune deficiency syndrome, or AIDS. In response, Judge Nicholas Colabella convened the hearing on the steps of the county jail. "I couldn't make the court officers bring him in the courtroom," he says. But the officers' fears proved unfounded: Voluntary tests later showed Mr. Brodie didn't have the disease. Mr. Brodie, who received five years' probation after pleading guilty, now refuses to speak with reporters. His wife, Michelle, calls his ordeal "horrendous," adding: "It was a rumor (the police) didn't even confirm. It hurt him." Law-enforcement agencies across the nation are grappling with the problems posed by criminal suspects who may have AIDS. Civil-rights activists acknowledge that some departments -- primarily those educated in the facts of AIDS transmission -- have followed safe, sensitive policies. But they also contend that in a number of cases officers have overreacted, and have even violated the rights of citizens, out of fear for their own lives. "We don't know how this whole AIDS thing will unfold," says Robert Levy, a lawyer with the New York Civil Liberties Union. "But we can see the beginning of some real problems." Recently, the National Institute of Justice, a research branch of the U. S. Justice Department, published an 80-page report on the issue. It asserts that no police officer has ever contracted the disease in the line of duty and that "there is absolutely no evidence of transmission through casual contact." Moreover, it concludes, "fear and concern may adversely affect the level and quality of service delivered by a law-enforcement agency." But many officers remain unconvinced. "When all these stories come out about AIDS, whom do you believe? " asks Lt. Dan Cooke of the Los Angeles Police Department. "All we hear is 'in all probability.' Don't give me the odds of catching it. Give me something specific." Police say their fears are justified because they often confront dangerous, potentially infected criminals. About 17% of the estimated 40,000 people in the U. S. with AIDS are intravenous drug abusers. It is this group -- prone to instability and violence -- that worries police the most. "We're not squeamish people; we face death every day," says Phil Caruso, president of the New York Patrolman's Benevolent Association and a policeman for more than 20 years. "But I would rather have an enraged gunman shoot me down than die from AIDS. " The AIDS issue is so delicate that those directly involved in incidents are generally reluctant to be interviewed about their experiences. However, police and AIDS organizations agree that difficult situations have become increasingly common. "I have two officers right now who don't know if they have AIDS or not," says Jack O'Brien, chairman of health and welfare at the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police. In separate incidents, the two officers were pricked with hypodermic needles during body searches of drug suspects. Both suspects, tested voluntarily, showed positive for AIDS. (According to the NIJ report, AIDS testing of suspects without their consent is expressly forbidden in several states, including California and Wisconsin, and subject to a wide range of legal and administrative obstacles in many other jurisdictions.) "The officers will have to be tested periodically for a year," says Mr. O'Brien. "They're in limbo. In the meantime, what will they tell their wives? There are incidents like this all over." Such concerns have led many police departments to adopt special precautionary measures. In Baltimore, for example, police officials set aside $50,000 this year for protection against suspects with AIDS. Each officer now receives a kit that includes rubber gloves, plastic goggles, disposable boots, cardiopulmonary-resuscitation masks, information manuals and a tube for hypodermic needles. In Albany, N. Y., police and fire departments went as far as to maintain lists of local AIDS sufferers for several months -- a policy that outraged such groups as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the New York Civil Liberties Union and the Lambda Legal Defense Fund, a national homosexual-rights organization. Those groups sent a six-page letter of protest to Albany's mayor stating that "the maintenance of such lists violates the legal and constitutional rights of those who are monitored or listed." Sgt. Robert Wolfgang of the Albany police says the department, which he explains drew up the lists so that officers could be forewarned to use caution in dealing with AIDS sufferers, recently abandoned them because it couldn't maintain their accuracy. He adds that "there was no harm intended with keeping them." Perhaps the most publicized police action occurred June 1 at the Third International Conference on AIDS in Washington, D. C. Police donned bright yellow gloves to arrest 64 people, many of them stricken with AIDS, who were protesting President Reagan's AIDS policies. "It sent the wrong message out to the country," says Lenny Giteck, editor of the Advocate, a national gay magazine. "The message from wearing dishwashing gloves is that you can catch AIDS just by touching a person. That's simply not true." Washington police defend the use of the gloves as a reasonable precaution. Medical professionals say education could alleviate much of the problem. Indeed, it has proved effective in San Francisco, where the gay community and the police department say that acrimony between them has fallen sharply as a result of educational efforts by both groups. The department's approach was illustrated during an incident last Halloween. As patrol officer Dan Linehan stood at the booking counter with a suspect who had admitted to being an AIDS carrier, the suspect spit in his face. Officer Linehan only tightened his grip on the suspect's arm. "I never really thought about catching anything," he says. "It was just a matter of knowing that you can't catch it through saliva (a conclusion of the federal Centers for Disease Control cited in the NIJ report). The perception is more potent than the reality." [This article is made available here by Dow Jones Co. for the personal and non-commercial use of callers to this bbs, in the hope that it will be of some help to those who are suffering from the disease and others who are seeking to help them.]