RFK son arrested in NY hospital

[Dan and Judy 614]

http://usnews.msnbc....lash-police-say

WNBC's Jonathan Dienst reports on the incident, and the likely lawsuit to result.

By Jonathan Dienst and Shimon Prokupecz, NBCNewYork.comThe son of Robert F. Kennedy has been charged with harassment and endangering the welfare of a child for allegedly clashing with two nurses who tried to stop him from taking his 2-day-old baby boy from a Westchester maternity unit, NBC New York has learned.

According to a Mount Kisco, N.Y. police report obtained by NBC New York, Douglas Kennedy, 44, took his baby from the newborn unit of Northern Westchester Hospital on Jan. 7, against the instructions of hospital staff who told him the infant needed to stay there. He faces misdemeanor charges.

Kennedy and his wife, Molly, who was in the hospital to recover from a cesarean section, disputed the accusations in a statement to NBC New York, saying "these allegations are absurd."

Advertise | AdChoicesThe nurse in charge of the unit, Anna Margaret Lane, said in a deposition that Kennedy wanted to take the child "to get fresh air" that evening. As he tried to leave, he was accompanied by a doctor from the hospital's emergency room, identified in court papers as "Dr. Haydock," later determined to be Dr. Timothy Haydock, a longtime family friend.

Read the original story and see security video at NBCNewYork.com

While the nursing staff sought to get Kennedy to return the baby to his bassinet, Haydock reportedly encouraged Kennedy to walk with the baby by telling nurses that he was with him, according to Lane's deposition.

Kennedy ignored the pleas of the nursing staff and carried the newborn -- identified in court papers as "B.K." -- to the elevator, police said. As the nursing staff tried to calm him and dissuade him from leaving the hospital, Kennedy turned and walked toward a stairwell leading to the outside of the hospital.

Lane blocked the doorway, "placing both hands on the doorknob" to prevent Kennedy from leaving, police said. Kennedy grabbed the nurse by her left wrist and twisted it to that he could pass into the stairwell, police said.

The baby's head "began to move from side to side, and in an attempt to stabilize the baby's head, nurse Cari Maleman Luciano reached toward the infant's head," police said.

"Instinctively as a nurse, I raised both my arms toward the neck of the baby to steady the violent shaking of the baby's head and neck," Luciano told investigators in a deposition.

While holding the child in his right arm, Kennedy kicked Luciano in the pelvis with his right foot, knocking her backward onto the floor, police said.

As he did this, Kennedy fell onto the floor with the baby in his arms. Kennedy then got up and ran "down the stairs with the infant until he was stopped by security and escorted back to the infant's room," the police report said.

The police report did not say whether the infant was harmed but Kennedy's lawyer told NBC New York the baby was not injured and slept during the altercation.

The statement to NBC New York from Kennedy and his wife said there was no crime committed.

"The nurse had no right to attempt to grab our child out of his father's arms and I, Douglas, was shocked and appalled when she did so," the statement said.

Haydock said in a statement to NBC New York that Kennedy, whom he has known for more than 40 years, was not putting his healthy baby at risk by seeking to take him for a walk outside.

Advertise | AdChoices"I witnessed the incident and I can state unequivocally that the nurses were the only aggressors," he said. "To charge Mr. Kennedy with a crime is simply incomprehensible to me."

Kennedy attorney Robert Gottlieb criticized the nurses' handling of the case.

"What happened to that baby and any danger to that baby was the fault not of Douglas Kennedy but the nurses involved in this case," Gottlieb said. "There is no question about it during the entire incident, Mr. Kennedy was acting very politely, calmly, politely."

Elliot Taub, the two nurses' attorney, said Lane and Luciano "called a 'code pink,' that is, it looks like its someone trying to abscond from the hospital with a newborn. That alerts the security staff and when it escalated, they hit what's called a 'code purple,' which means there is someone who is acting inappropriately, highly offensive, is a danger in the hospital."

Kennedy is the 10th child of Robert F. and Ethel Kennedy. He and Molly have four children.

A Brown University graduate, Kennedy started his journalism career with The New York Post and most recently worked as a general assignment reporter and bi-monthly news program host for Fox News

Edited February 25, 2012 by Dan and Judy

[Dan and Judy 614]

Idiot nurses

[sandinista! 1,816]

Uh, no. Douglas Kennedy behaved like a jackass. There's a reason for security measures in hospital maternity wards. People steal babies. They were doing their jobs. Protecting babies from being taken from the hospital by unauthorized people. Being a jackass to women who are working hard and putting their own safety in danger by confronting someone who may have been a child abductor is not cool. I'm glad he's being prosecuted, regardless of anything, assault on his part was completely uncalled for.

[Ban Hammer 13,340]

Uh, no. Douglas Kennedy behaved like a jackass. There's a reason for security measures in hospital maternity wards. People steal babies. They were doing their jobs. Protecting babies from being taken from the hospital by unauthorized people. Being a jackass to women who are working hard and putting their own safety in danger by confronting someone who may have been a child abductor is not cool. I'm glad he's being prosecuted, regardless of anything, assault on his part was completely uncalled for.

that's my read on it. perhaps he thought being a kennedy gave him special rights.

[james&olya 1,121]

Uh, no. Douglas Kennedy behaved like a jackass. There's a reason for security measures in hospital maternity wards. People steal babies. They were doing their jobs. Protecting babies from being taken from the hospital by unauthorized people. Being a jackass to women who are working hard and putting their own safety in danger by confronting someone who may have been a child abductor is not cool. I'm glad he's being prosecuted, regardless of anything, assault on his part was completely uncalled for.

You are wrong unless the nurses can show they did not know that Kennedy was the babies parent! Nurses often take the attitude that they are IN CHARGE and everyone has to follow their commands. Not true. Being in a hospital does not cause anyone to relinquish their rights. The nurses cannot attempt to physically restrain a patient (or in this case a patient being carried by the parent) unless the patient is clearly incapacitated from making a judgment due to disability, intoxication, etc. A parent, unless a court has curtailed their parental rights, cannot 'steal' their child! The charge could be reversed though. The nurses could be charged with kidnapping if they unlawfully prevented the parent from exercising their right to leave the hospital!

Edited February 26, 2012 by james&olya

[sandinista! 1,816]

In most maternity wards around the country, especially in a large city, babies aren't removed from those wards without pre-clearance, or when discharge papers have been signed and ID badges have been checked. Abductions happen. Custodial interference happens, deranged strangers abduct newborns, all kinds of crazy stuff can go down in these places. So no, not even a Kennedy can just bypass all the security measures and checks and just saunter out of the hospital without being cleared and checked. And this jackass had removed the alarm trigger band from the baby too-nope, nothing suspicious looking there. If they felt so hindered by hospital policies that are in place to not only cover the hospital's a$$, but also, you know, protect babies, then they would have been completely free to just pop a squat at home or the middle of a forest somewhere and deliver the baby there. If it had been an abductor or a non custodial rights possessing father though that removed that baby and two maternity nurses just looked the other way, in a lawsuit those nurses would be held liable along with the hospital, and that would be the last day they ever held a nursing job. Normal people, when stopped by nurses would have just said "hey I just wanted to take my baby out for a bit, how do I get cleared for that?" Abductors and jackasses assault people for holding them up and adhering to security measures. Security measures the guy had to have known about.

[sandinista! 1,816]

that's my read on it. perhaps he thought being a kennedy gave him special rights.

He probably did, still does, and probably has thought so his entire life.

God forbid someone should make him follow the same rules and regulations as everyone else, much less two lowly women.

[Danno 1,228]

If they knew he was the father, I'm thinking -Who are they to try to tell him he can't take a walk with his child?

Irregardless, if he did kick the nurse as it appears, that is way out of bounds, even if he was in the right.

Bottom line: He is a Kennedy, soon we will learn of some extenuating force that made him do it, drugs, lost of sleep or even recent comments by the GOP on healthcare.

[james&olya 1,121]

Normal people, when stopped by nurses would have just said "hey I just wanted to take my baby out for a bit, how do I get cleared for that?" Abductors and jackasses assault people for holding them up and adhering to security measures. Security measures the guy had to have known about.

Do we know that he didn't start out as you suggest? Unless you were there you will never know precisely how this very unfortunate incident unfolded. I only want to point out that it is well within the bounds of possibility, based on what we know, that the nurse or nurses came across as entirely unreasonable control freaks and that this Kennedy's response might not seem so over the top if we knew more about what happened. Nurses are generally wonderful people but they are human and come with a range of different 'styles' and their own particular hang-ups, just like all the rest of us. My point was that he did have a right to be doing what he was and that many people don't seem to realize that a patient does not lose any of his rights when he goes to a hospital!

[Dan and Judy 614]

The nurses knew who Kennedy was or it would have been mentioned in the story as part of their justification.

as it is they felt they were enforcing hospital policy

he wasn't commiting any crime in taking his child from the hospital. People leave hospitals everyday

AMA, (against medical advice). They ask the patient to sign a form saying he is leaving AMA but they don't try to physically restrain the patient until he signs. Attempted False imprisonment is what the

nurses should be charged with. Possibly attempted kidnapping for trying to take the child from his father. If she wasn't trying to grab his baby she wouldn't have gotten knocked down.

[james&olya 1,121]

The thing that bothers me most is how our rights as citizens are quickly being eroded by, as the above poster puts it, 'security measures'! Between what our federal government is doing under patriot act provisions and with similar over-reaction 'security measures' by other government and private entities, we are moving ever closer to a police state. Some of it may be necessary due to the circumstances of the times in which we live, but much of it is truly unreasonable!

[justashooter 430]

In most maternity wards around the country, especially in a large city, babies aren't removed from those wards without pre-clearance, or when discharge papers have been signed and ID badges have been checked. Abductions happen. Custodial interference happens, deranged strangers abduct newborns, all kinds of crazy stuff can go down in these places.

all true, but irrelevant in the matter of this case. the nursing staff can be found guilty of unlawful imprisonment in this case, as the child was in custody of his parent, with the consent of his other parent, and was not being placed in imminent danger by the excursion.

policies and procedures be damned, if they are intrusive to the point of detainment. hospitals are not prisons, and patients have a right to leave AMA (against medical advise) whether they are in compliance with all of the CYA protocal the nursing profession has created in the face of a litlgious society, or not.

a patient cannot be detained by nursing or security staff for failing to comply with "pre-clearance" or protocol. a patient does not have to wait around for nursing staff to provide a bunch of forms for them to sign. a patient can express a will to leave and immediately do so. to hinder them is false imprisonment. this right of free egress extends to parental custody.

the nursing profession has the public brainwashed into thinking that their permission is required before a patient leaves a facility. this is not true unless the patient is legally incapacitated. in cases involving parental custody imminent danger to the child can be cited, but is a weak legal defense agaisnt the charge of false imprisonment, which is a criminal offense.

kennedy can write the charging documents himself, if he wants to, and the jurisdictive court is mandated to hear the charges...

that being said, speaking as a nurse of the male gender, i have never seen so much psychopathology in nursing as in the maternity wards. sure, some of the staff are real winners, but some of them are mysandrogenistic to an extreme. in this case they need to be slapped hard.

[sandinista! 1,816]

The baby and his mother were patients there, Douglas Kennedy wasn't. Their obligation was to that baby, to ensure that no one who is unauthorized to remove that baby from the hospital does so. So far nothing has been presented that shows clearly and undisputedly that either woman was presented with evidence showing that Mr Kennedy had any authority and go-ahead to remove the baby, or that either woman even knew who he was in the first place. Without checking the baby's id bands, how would they even know that was his baby in the first place? Neither woman has been charged with anything, not with kidnapping or assault or anything else. Neither of them have been removed from their jobs or disciplined by the nursing boards in their state. It doesn't sound like there are any future plans to either, and the assertions here that there could or should be are nonsensical. It's really funny though the way many people are up in arms here about the nurses responding the way they've been trained and instructed to do per hospital regulations, but no one has a beef with the security guard who Kennedy ultimately surrendered to and agreed to return to the maternity ward with the child after he was confronted by security. Babies can and have been abducted from maternity wards by non custodial fathers. Hospitals and their staff can and have been fined and held liable for lax security measures and staff noncompliance and laxity towards those security measures.

It's also disturbing that several male posters here have nothing at all to say about the violent way in which he handled this issue. This could very, very easily have been quickly and non-violently resolved. The violence and irrationality of his crazy response though would have greatly increased suspicion that he was doing something wrong and/or did not have any business removing the baby from that ward. Maybe I've just been coddled, but the normal, sane men I encounter in my work and personal life do not respond to misunderstandings or disputes like this with violence. A nurse blocking him from a doorway by placing her hand on the doorknob, and not on him or the baby does not constitute any kind of threat or situation that called for twisting the woman's arm so violently that it caused his son's head to bobble around so much that the other nurse there instinctively reached up her hand to steady the baby's head. Maybe they were totally b!tchy when they told him he wasn't cleared to remove the baby from the ward. So what. That hardly justifies him laying a hand on either of those women. I guess everyone knows now though that some of you guys posting here have a pretty shamefully low threshold for justifying violent behavior against women.

[Dan and Judy 614]

The baby and his mother were patients there, Douglas Kennedy wasn't. Their obligation was to that baby, to ensure that no one who is unauthorized to remove that baby from the hospital does so. So far nothing has been presented that shows clearly and undisputedly that either woman was presented with evidence showing that Mr Kennedy had any authority and go-ahead to remove the baby, or that either woman even knew who he was in the first place. Without checking the baby's id bands, how would they even know that was his baby in the first place? Neither woman has been charged with anything, not with kidnapping or assault or anything else. Neither of them have been removed from their jobs or disciplined by the nursing boards in their state. It doesn't sound like there are any future plans to either, and the assertions here that there could or should be are nonsensical. It's really funny though the way many people are up in arms here about the nurses responding the way they've been trained and instructed to do per hospital regulations, but no one has a beef with the security guard who Kennedy ultimately surrendered to and agreed to return to the maternity ward with the child after he was confronted by security. Babies can and have been abducted from maternity wards by non custodial fathers. Hospitals and their staff can and have been fined and held liable for lax security measures and staff noncompliance and laxity towards those security measures.

It's also disturbing that several male posters here have nothing at all to say about the violent way in which he handled this issue. This could very, very easily have been quickly and non-violently resolved. The violence and irrationality of his crazy response though would have greatly increased suspicion that he was doing something wrong and/or did not have any business removing the baby from that ward. Maybe I've just been coddled, but the normal, sane men I encounter in my work and personal life do not respond to misunderstandings or disputes like this with violence. A nurse blocking him from a doorway by placing her hand on the doorknob, and not on him or the baby does not constitute any kind of threat or situation that called for twisting the woman's arm so violently that it caused his son's head to bobble around so much that the other nurse there instinctively reached up her hand to steady the baby's head. Maybe they were totally b!tchy when they told him he wasn't cleared to remove the baby from the ward. So what. That hardly justifies him laying a hand on either of those women. I guess everyone knows now though that some of you guys posting here have a pretty shamefully low threshold for justifying violent behavior against women.

It appears we are starting in two different places.

You seem to assume that the nurses didn't know that Mr. Kennedy was the legal guardian of the child.

My attitude is based on the premise that they did.

Obviously you will arrive at different conclusions based on those different starting points

About the violence on women thing, If you are using my starting point then they simply had no right to detain Mr. Kennedy or the baby.

If I walk into some misc. office building and pick out a 6'4" 280 .lb football player and tell him he can't leave and then press some buttons in the elevator to keep him from using it and then he calmly walks walks over to the stairs and I jump in front of him and put my hand on the door nob. Guess what's going to happen to my arm .

and then my little buddy tries to grab the guys briefcase, guess whats going to happen to my little buddy

and then when the cops get there my little buddy is going to say "I saw the latch on the briefcase was open and I was afraid everything was going to fall out so I lunged to try close the latch.

Once the nurses decided to call a code pink then the security guard is just doing his job and the hospital has to back the nurses now out self preservation. Any hint from them that the nurses did anything

wrong would be used against them.

[Ontarkie 14,223]

I look at it a bit different. The nurses most likely knew who he was. This is how I think it went, 2 men one they recognize the other they did not. They are standing over the bassinets in the nursery where they have other babies. The 2 men leave with one baby claiming he is the father. Then the doctor friend says it's OK I'm with him (like that is supposed to make it all better) and continue walking out. Now did the nurses have a chance to verify the I.D bracelet and verify with the mother that he was allowed to remove the baby from the nursery. They didn't seem to have time.

Every time I had my daughter taken from me while I was in the hospital each nurse showed their ID and it would match the names on the chalk board in my room. They would check the babies bracelets with mine. They did this every single time even if I knew it was my child and they knew who I was. They also have a policy at the hospital I was at that no one can walk around the halls with the baby unless she was in her bassinet. Most nurses and Doctors view the mother and child as one patient, and will always check with mom before dad if possible.

I find it very suspicious that an ER Doctor would encourage this type of behaviour. He would know that ppl don't go walking into nurseries taking 2 days old out for fresh air. What were they thinking fresh air in Feb. at 2 days old and barely dressed.

Edited February 28, 2012 by Ontarkie