On April 7, 2021, 52-year-old Hughie Robinson was second in line for a kidney transplant. But plans fell through after spending days in a St. Louis hospital, drugged and prepped for surgery. So on April 10, he found himself in the hospital's parking garage, searching for his car.
And that's where the hospital's security officers found him, too.
"What did I do?" Robinson asked. He was still wearing a patient's bracelet, the parking garage ticket in his pocket. But the officers jumped, tackled, and beat him. When he cried that he was in pain, their response was: "Good."
The officers then took Robinson to an interrogation room, bashing his head into the wall. They told him if they saw him at the hospital again, they'd attack him. "You ain't supposed to be here … Don't come back."
Still receiving kidney treatments, Robinson HAD to come back - until he passed away a year later.
Now, heartbroken, Robinson's daughter is handling his lawsuit against the hospital. And she nearly didn't obtain access to the video evidence! "My dad deserves to be at peace, and it's what he would have wanted," she said.
No matter how "non-threatening" we are, law enforcement officers will find a way to criminalize and brutalize us - especially our disabled community members. Like Robinson's daughter is proving, this fight isn't over.