Berkeley #BlackLivesMatter protesters who occupied downtown Berkeley last year reportedly caused a 30-minute delay in the time it took for paramedics to reach a collapsed 62-year-old man who was having trouble breathing. Henry Alvin Jones later died.
Jones had collapsed near an elevator at an apartment complex at 2175 Kittredge St. on the evening of Dec. 7, according to city documents obtained by the Berkeleyside. Because of the approximately 600 Berkeley protesters clogging up traffic in downtown, firefighters were instructed not to go directly to the scene but were reportedly required to stay put at the fire station and wait for police to escort them.
Berkeley protesters have been blamed before for delays in emergency response cases that have ended in someone’s death.
In 2012, a Berkeley Hills resident, 67-year-old Peter Cuckor, was bludgeoned to death; his wife watched helplessly as her defenseless husband was murdered in their own home.
The Berkeleyside notes that he had called police to complain about an intruder on his property, but that police did not show up in time because they had been responding only to emergency calls due to an ongoing protest.
The protest that police had been responding to reportedly wound up being a small Occupy march.
Follow Adelle Nazarian on Twitter @AdelleNaz
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