Video of Kentucky police citing woman in labor puts a spotlight on a street camping law

The head of Louisville Metro Police Department’s Downtown Area Patrol approached a pregnant woman standing beside a bare mattress beneath an overpass in downtown Louisville at 9 a.m. on a rainy day in late September.

Body camera footage obtained by Kentucky Public Radio shows that as Lt. Caleb Stewart walked closer, the woman yelled, “I might be going into labor, is that okay?”

Her water had broken, she said. “I’m leaking out,” she told him. She grabbed a blanket and a few personal effects as a bright orange city dump truck pulled up to remove the makeshift bed.

The woman had no phone. She said her husband went to call an ambulance, so Stewart called one for her. But as she walked toward the street to wait for help, Stewart yelled at her to stop.

“Am I being detained?” she asked.

“Yes, you’re being detained,” he shouted. “You’re being detained because you’re unlawfully camping.”

Stewart was enforcing a new state law that bans street camping — essentially, a person may not sleep, intend to sleep, or set up camp on undesignated public property like sidewalks or underneath overpasses. He has issued the majority of the citations for unlawful camping in Louisville.

https://www.lpm.org/news/2024-12-19/pregnant-kentucky-woman-cited-for-street-camping-while-in-labor

Cops gonna cop. And what can you expect from a pig but a grunt? Especially in Louseville. Oh, and she had the baby later that day.