‘‘Swallowing cocaine is the equivalent of putting a gun to your head,’’

08:08 Crack 0 Comments

Marcus A. Hemmingway of Warren nearly choked to death Monday morning after swallowing a bag of crack cocaine, police said.Narcotics detective Melanie Gambill said it was the fourth time in the past two weeks that a suspect tried to swallow cocaine. She said swallowing of drugs is not a new trend, but it seems to be happening more often lately.‘‘We’re in a no-win situation,’’ Gambill said. ‘‘If we struggle with the suspect to try to get them to spit out the drugs, we get accused of police brutality. If we let them swallow it and they die, we get sued for wrongful death.’’Hemmingway, 31, 4145 Leavitt Road N.W., was admitted to Forum Health Trumbull Memorial Hospital following his arrest about 3 a.m. Monday. He is set to be released today and will be arraigned in Warren Municipal Court on charges of felony drug possession, tampering with evidence and obstruction of justice, according to a warrant filed Monday by Warren police.According to a police report, Hemmingway was pulled over on Oak Street S.W. after he went through a stop sign at York Avenue.As officers were handcuffing Hemmingway, they noticed something in his mouth. He struggled with officers who attempted to get him to spit it out, the report states. Officers said they stunned him with a Taser on his collarbone, but it had no effect.Hemmingway started to spit out crack cocaine onto the back seat, but continued struggling with officers until he swallowed the bag in his mouth, the report states. Hemmingway went limp for a few seconds and was visibly struggling to breathe, so officers pulled him into a seated position and called for an ambulance.The plastic bag was stuck in Hemmingway’s throat and he was gasping for breath for about a minute before he was able to get it down, the report states. He spit more pieces of crack cocaine onto the ground while waiting for the ambulance, and hospital personnel said they recovered additional drugs, as well as the plastic sandwich bag, according to the report.Gambill said people buying a small hit of crack usually put it in their mouth to avoid detection during a pat-down. A $20 hit of crack is slightly bigger than a pea, she said.Gambill said it’s more dangerous for suspects to swallow larger quantities of cocaine for two reasons. First, they rip off the ends of the bag, which causes the cocaine to spill out and puts them at risk of an immediate overdose; secondly, the bag can get stuck and they can choke to death.Jamil R. Johnson, 24, died Oct. 2, 2004, following an eight-minute police chase in Warren. An autopsy report shows he died of acute cocaine intoxication and police think he swallowed the drug during the chase because cocaine was found in the car he was driving, according to reports.
‘‘Swallowing cocaine is the equivalent of putting a gun to your head,’’ Trumbull County forensic pathologist Dr. Humphrey Germaniuk said.
He said a person can die from swallowing crack cocaine if it’s a large enough dose, but even a small dose can kill someone under the right circumstances because swallowing it causes it to enter the bloodstream quickly.
Germaniuk said a high volume of cocaine in a person’s bloodstream leads to aggression and strength — what he called excited delirium — which results in officers having to use force to subdue a suspect. He said witnesses then claim police brutality, but the suspect could be in a cocaine psychosis and not even feel the effects of officers’ use of force.
‘‘The worst case scenario is the person dies from a drug overdose on the way to the jail, and the officers get accused in the death. Cocaine is a lethal drug, but there are a lot of factors that determine its lethality for each person,’’ Germaniuk said.
And of course, there’s always the possibility the suspect will choke to death on the plastic bag before the drugs can take effect.‘‘It’s a dangerous practice and I wouldn’t recommend it. Cocaine and plastic are not meant to be swallowed,’’ Germaniuk said.