A Geauga County grand jury has indicted a Chesterland man on a felony charge of assaulting a police officer after authorities say he fought first responders who were trying to save his life. Kevin M. Quinn, 45, was indicted July 14 on one fourth-degree felony count accusing him of causing or attempting to cause physical harm to an officer during a June 21 incident at his Westchester Trail home, according to cleveland.com.
Here is the stake: officers and medics rushed to save an unresponsive man from a drug overdose, and the man came up swinging. When the culture spends years broadcasting that cops are the enemy, nobody should be shocked when people act on it.
According to the Chester Township police report, officers and EMS personnel were dispatched around 10:30 a.m. after a 911 caller reported Quinn was unconscious in a bathroom. Dispatchers initially classified it as a possible seizure before upgrading it to a suspected overdose after drug paraphernalia was reportedly found at the scene. As Quinn regained consciousness, he attempted to fight with the police officers and EMS personnel treating him, police said. Narcotics and drug paraphernalia were recovered from the home.
The indictment does not identify the officer or describe any injuries sustained. Cleveland.com reported the facts straight; no other outlet appears to have picked up the story.
What makes this incident worth watching is the pattern. The same week, halfway across the world, a Danish police officer and two others were shot in Nørresundby when officers responding to a fire report were met with gunshots, according to AP reporting carried by SFGATE and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Danish police returned fire. The injuries were described as serious. Both outlets carried essentially the same wire copy — neither added independent reporting.
Different countries, different circumstances, same underlying reality: the people who run toward danger are the ones catching hands and bullets. In Chesterland, it was the fists of a man who'd rather fight than accept help. In Denmark, it was gunfire. The connective tissue is a culture that has spent the better part of a decade demonizing the people in uniform.
When politicians and pundits spend years telling Americans that police are the problem, they shouldn't act surprised when ordinary people treat police like the enemy — even the ones narcaning them back to life.
The open question: Quinn will face his day in court, but who answers for the rhetoric that made assaulting a cop feel like something other than a grave offense?
