LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Louisville police released body camera video Thursday showing an officer citing a woman for street camping as she sat under an interstate overpass in labor.

The video dated Sept. 27 shows a Louisville Metro Police officer, identified by an LMPD spokesperson as Lt. Caleb Stewart, approach a woman seen picking up some belongings next to two mattresses lying under an interstate ramp near downtown.  

As Stewart exits his cruiser and walks toward the woman, who did not want to be identified, she tells him "I'm waiting for an ambulance, I might be going into labor, is that OK?"  

When asked if she had called for one, the woman tells Stewart she doesn't have a phone and her husband had just gone to find one to make the call.

"I'm leaking out. I'm leaking water, all of my amniotic fluid I'm leaking out," she told Stewart, who calls EMS for assistance in the area of East Washington and Hancock.

The woman begins walking away as EMS asks Stewart how far along she is. He follows her and asks. When she doesn't answer, he shouts at her to stop several times before she asks if she's being detained.  

"Yes you are being detained," Stewart says.

"For what?" she asks.

"You're being detained because you're unlawfully camping," he responds before asking again how far along she is. The woman says she's due Oct. 29 and is going to find her husband.

"I gotta go to the hospital," she says through tears. After Stewart says an ambulance is on the way, she asks "what the f*** am I doing wrong? I'm walking out to the street." Stewart repeats that he has an ambulance on the way, and the woman asks again what she's doing wrong by walking to the street to wait for EMS.

Officers walk her to the street and as she continues ahead of them, Stewart yells at her to stop and stand next to him out of the street.

"OK but you don't have to holler and you don't have to push me," she responds. "I haven't done anything to you."

As city workers clear the encampment, Stewart walks back to his police truck. As soon as he enters the vehicle and drives it closer to the street where the woman is waiting, he says "I don't believe for one second that this lady's gone into labor, but I called EMS, I asked for them code three just in case I'm wrong."

Stewart claims the woman has "pulled this kind of stuff before," and that as soon as she's "observed violating some kind of a law that she'll make up some outlandish story about what's going on." 

He exits the vehicle, and writes the citation before handing it to the woman, who is now sitting on the ground.

"I'm issuing you a citation for unlawful camping, OK?" Stewart tells her. "You can't camp out or sleep on sidewalks, under underpasses or bridges. And we've warned you about this before, OK? You've got a court date on Nov. 8 at 9 a.m. at the courthouse at 600 West Jefferson. ..."

The woman took the citation, crumbled it up and tossed it on the ground. As she gets up and gathers her belongings, she puts the citation in her pocket before eventually leaving with EMS. She was cited for unlawful camping, a first offense.

"You're all horrible people," she said as she gathered her things. "I'm glad ya'll got this job, to f*** with the homeless and not help society. Ya'll got this job to f*** with the homeless, people that don't even really do anything."

Ryan Dischinger, the woman's public defender, said she gave birth later that same day.

"The reality for her, and for anyone who's homeless in Kentucky, is that they're constantly and unavoidably breaking this law. The criminalization of poverty inevitably begets ugly and offensive enforcement actions," Dischinger said in a statement. "What she needed was help and compassion and instead she was met with state violence. Without assistance from police or the courts, she and her child are sheltered and healthy."

The woman's public defender said she gave birth later that same day.

Louisville Public Media first reported on the woman's citation in an article published Thursday afternoon. 

In a written statement just after 5:30 p.m. Thursday, LMPD said that its officers — along with members of The Safe and Healthy Streets Initiative, Solid Waste Management and Homeless Services Division — responded in the area that day to clean the encampment, officer services to those living there and cite anyone committing violations. They do this several times per week, LMPD said. 

A crime-sweeping bill, known as the Safer Kentucky Act, took effect earlier this year making street camping illegal. It also makes repeat camping in public areas, such as streets or beneath overpasses, a misdemeanor. 

"The things that people are getting cited for are crimes of poverty and it's disgusting," Tiny Herron, a homelessness advocate with Arthur Street Hotel, said. "If they intended to further criminalize homelessness and poverty, then it's working perfectly."

But some supporters of the law, including State Rep. John Hodgson, said it's "working as intended." In a statement, he shared his support of Stewart's decision.

“Overall, HB5 is working as intended on the primary goal: helping improve public order and safety," he said, in part. "Calls about hazardous homeless encampments are down 27% according to the Mayor’s office."

Hodgson said a secondary goal of the law is to "enable officers to 'nudge' unsheltered people towards organized shelter spaces, wraparound services, mental health treatment, and drug rehabilitation, where they may not have been open to such help in the past."

"All judges have the option of diverting cases into rehab rather than the criminal justice system," he said. "Utilization of rehab facilities by unsheltered homeless individuals has doubled since July, according Isaiah House. There is no compassion in leaving unsheltered individuals on the streets to spiral downwards and suffer from their drug addiction, mental illness, and other social adaptation problems."

WDRB rode along with Stewart, the head of LMPD's Downtown Area Patrol, on Dec. 4. Three times a week, Stewart, along with two other officers, Metro Homeless Services, and Waste Services work together and check spots where people are known to camp. 

Stewart said when the patrol finds someone in violation of the law, it will first give that person a warning. If that individual is caught breaking the law again, they will receive a citation.

In the story, Stewart said officers check for four things if someone is in violation: camping in a prohibited location, enter area with intent to sleep or camp, area could not be designated camping area and person lacks authorization, the person has been warned before.

"Some people may think it's more compassionate to provide somebody a tent and food out here and hand it out, I think one way of looking at that is it's encouraging people's behavior to continue living out here," Stewart said during the Dec. 4 ride-along. "I think it's important we create that bit of friction of people to maybe help inspire them to make other decisions."

The video released by the police department on Thursday has more than two hours of footage showing officers interacting with homeless individuals. They come into contact with the pregnant woman about an hour and-a-half from the start of the recording. 

After the woman is taken away in the ambulance, Stewart is back in his vehicle and again begins describing the reason for the citation. 

"She's on the mattress, she's got a blanket, pillow, underneath the interstate bridge, so clearly a violation," he said. He added that she was "utilizing camping paraphernalia" and didn't have a "designated camping or sleeping area ... didn't have authority to be doing this here and she's been warned before. She's probably been warned multiple times, I know she's officially been warned at least once."

In Thursday's statement, LMPD said the officers offered her resources for shelter twice before this encounter, and she declined. Police said without the officer's intervention, "it is possible the baby would have been born without medical care."

"We support our officers in using discretion and the information available to them at the time in making decisions," LMPD said. "We also understand everyone may not agree with those decisions, but we are committed to being transparent in communicating and explaining processes and policy to the community."

When asked on Friday, Mayor Craig Greenberg didn't say if he stood by the lieutenant's actions. However, he believes the city is making progress in its overall goal of helping unhoused people.

"We can learn from every interaction we have with someone in crisis, but we will continue doing this work," Greenberg said. "We just opened the Community Care Campus, a temporary shelter for families, so that families can get off the streets. For the first time in as long as anybody knows, there are no families on a waiting list for a shelter in our city."

According to court documents, the woman is scheduled for a late January hearing on the citation. 

Related Stories: 

Copyright 2024 WDRB Media. All Rights Reserved.