Brickbats

Police State Hospital

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When San Francisco police tried to arrest one drug dealer, she reached into her pants, and a batch of suspected cocaine disappeared. She was taken to a police station and strip-searched, where a female officer reported seeing something between the woman's legs. But before she could retrieve it, the woman pushed it further inside. So they took her to San Francisco General Hospital and got a cavity search warrant. But the attending physician refused to perform the search. So a police captain was called to the hospital where he allegedly said he would get a judge's order for for the doctor to do the search—"and if you don't comply, we won't have any choice but to arrest you." Finally, after a great deal of negotiation, the head of the health department agreed to do the search, but a female physician was able to talk the woman into giving up a plastic bag that allegedly contained several rocks of crack cocaine.