Charles Hill Was My Patient – I Am Joining the BART Protest in his Honor Source: The Bay Citizen

[EFerrari]

Charles Hill Was My Patient – I Am Joining the BART Protest in his Honor
By Rupa Marya, MD|August 28, 2011 3:37 p.m.

Source: The Bay Citizen (http://s.tt/138td)

Dear San Francisco,

I am one of your local physicians and have taken care of many different kinds of people during the past nine years of my appointment as an internist at UCSF, where I have worked at SF General Hospital as well as at the VA and the UCSF campuses.

San Francisco is a surprisingly small town, and when you spend enough time in the health care industry, you come to recognize many of the city's residents. You hold their stories and watch over them, in the hospital when they are ill and in the chance occurrences of running into them on the streets, in the market or painting the town red.

It is an honor and great privilege to take care of the people of this city that I love so dearly.

Last month, I learned that one of my former patients, Charles Hill, was shot and killed by BART police. Per the police, he was armed with a bottle and a knife and had menacing behavior. Per eye-witnesses, he was altered and appeared to be intoxicated but did not represent a lethal danger.

Source: The Bay Citizen (http://s.tt/138td)

This doctor is right. San Francisco is a very small town. I think I once found Charles Hill wandering in my beach neighborhood on one of those rare hot summer days in 2007. He was near collapse and seemed to have heat prostration. When the SFPD responded to my call for help, they became irritated with me because I pushed the medical issue when they apparently simply wanted to arrest him for public drunkenness -- a conclusion they reached based on his appearance. They finally called EMTs.

[Luminous Animal]

1. Thank you for this.

[EFerrari]

3. A small freaky thing

is that I went looking for Hill's photo because I'm not out there any more and was worried it was a Charles that my block tried to look out for. He was homeless and he could get combative in certain situations. It was sort of a shock to see a different but still familiar face. :(

[Book Lover]

2. It is good to finally see someone involved with Mr Hill's life involved for a change

These incredibly stupid and ineffective actions need all the credibility they can get. Not everyone is inconvenienced by a "mere" hour delay when these stations are closed.

[EFerrari]

4. So, you missed the outcome of the board meeting last week?

BART PD violence as well as cell phone shutdown were both addressed. Hardly "stupid and ineffective".

[Book Lover]

5. I know that I'm supposed to suffer mightily for others, but somehow

after being held up for hours (once you miss a SamTrans bus to the coast, it's a $35+ cab ride home, not to mention that time taken away from caring for my disabled child) week after week, I am less concerned about a group with impossible goals (disbanding BART police? why is that a good idea and how is that realistic, even in a revolutionary sense?) and more concerned about my own situation.

ETA: And just where did those discussions go? Nowhere. What is being changed as a result of them? Nothing. Big success.

[EFerrari]

6. The BART Board recognized that it needed to prevent its staff

from arbitrarily shutting off cell phone service, that was a step in the right direction so people like you wouldn't be stuck inside a station with no way to call home.

As far as impossible goals, even that local fringe radical, Willie Brown acknowledged publicly that BART police are not real police. They should not be armed and they certainly shouldn't be killing people at BART stations.