This is your War on Terror. This is your Security.

[hummingwolf]

Baby locked up at Honolulu airport dies

Luaipou Futi and a nurse banged on a locked door at Honolulu International Airport Friday morning and begged for medical help for Futi's 14-day-old son, who had flown here from American Samoa for heart surgery and was becoming distressed in the warm room.

According to Futi's attorney, from the other side of the door, the women heard voices telling them to remain calm.

After 30 minutes in the room, Futi, her son, Michael Tony Futi, and the traveling nurse, Arizona Veavea, were released, attorney Rick Fried said.

City paramedics took Michael to Kaiser Permanente's Moana-lua Medical Center, but he died later that morning. Emergency Services Department officials said they received a call at 6:10 a.m. and the child was taken to Kaiser Moanalua in critical condition.

Autopsy results are pending.

More at the link above, including video. I can't be coherent about this one. (Link via supergee.)

Comments

[szeretni.livejournal.com]

Oh sweet god... *cries*

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

My reaction too.

[xforge.livejournal.com]

I hope to God that some people go to jail for a long, long time for this.

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

When discussing the possibility/probability and/or improbability of anyone even getting written up over this incident, much less being fired, filkerdave said over in supergee's journal:

I want them to fly Michael Futi's body back to American Samoa, holding him in their lap the entire flight. I want them to have to walk to the cemetery, dig the fucking grave with their bare hands and bury him.

After they swim back to Honolulu, THEN they get fired.

Firing doesn't seem like enough. Jail doesn't seem like enough. But then, nothing really seems like enough in the face of this.

[aekiy.livejournal.com]

There are no words for how horrible that is..

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

Yeah.

[paradigm-palace.livejournal.com]

Jaw-dropped and speechless, right now.

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

Yeah. It hurts to think about, but I keep thinking about it.

[meretia]

Actually, aside from how undeniably terrible that is, I think it says something scary about our border security if they can't read well enough to see that she goddamn had already been cleared to enter the country.

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

Yep. But just think: thanks to the vigilance of airport security, we will now be forever protected from a two-week old American citizen with heart problems. Gosh, I feel so much safer now.

[rhiannasilel.livejournal.com]

That's just sick. I hope that she gets enough money to put her other three kids through college and retire. I know it won't bring her son back, but damn she deserves something.

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

She should get money, and free counseling if she wants it. But the system that made this possible needs some serious reform too, and I seriously doubt that will happen.

[rhiannasilel.livejournal.com]

Oh, totally agreed there and compensation seems really meaningless in this case. I agree with Rab and think that the customs officials that held the baby there should get face involuntary manslaughter charges because the effectively did kill that baby. Things need to change and soon in this country because things are really going backward.