Woman Dies After Cops Refuse to Give Her Insulin

What does a person deserve for being caught possessing another person’s credit cards and baggies containing trace amounts of marijuana? A fine? Probation? Jail time? Nah, not tough enough. How about death?

A month and a half ago, a 37-year-old woman named Sarah Tibbetts was arrested with her boyfriend in a Irving, TX. She’d been in trouble with the law before, according to Texas Monthly, and in the past had been given insulin in jail. She made it clear to police that without it, she’d die.

You see where this is going: Texas, a poor person, medicine… of course the police, despite knowing that without her insulin, she’d die, didn’t give Sarah Tibbetts her insulin. And, of course, she died. The family’s awaiting autopsy results, and if they determine that diabetes-related causes killed Tibbetts, the Irvine police are headed straight toward Lawsuit City.

Texas Monthly’s write up contained this brilliant (but sad) sentence summing up why we keep hearing stories like this:

It’s a common argument when cases like these come up: the notion that people who are accused of crimes deserve whatever happens next, up to and including death.

Delighting in the misfortune and pain of the poor is as American as fucking an apple pie.