Teen dies after injuries in fight Autopsy awaited for cause of death By ERIC HANSON Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle SUGAR LAND -- A Missouri City teenager injured in a fight with another youth earlier this month has died. Police will not know if the death was caused by the injuries sustained in the fight until an autopsy is performed. Fredrick Conner, 15, was injured a few minutes after 11 p.m. Feb. 6 in a parking lot behind Sugar Land Methodist Hospital in the 16500 block of the Southwest Freeway, said Sugar Land police spokeswoman Pat Whitty. Witnesses told police that Conner and the other teen were arguing earlier in the evening at the First Colony AMC movie theater and that they agreed to meet in the parking lot to fight. Whitty said that when police arrived at the scene emergency medical technicians were tending to Conner, who had a large cut through his lip and a possible broken jaw. According to police, Conner's injuries were caused by a single blow from a 14-year-old boy who left the parking lot before officers arrived. Conner, a student at Quail Valley Middle School, was taken to Polly Ryon Hospital in Richmond but was unable to give officers a statement because of his injuries. He was then transported by Life Flight Helicopter to Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston, where he died Wednesday. Police know the name of the suspect, but no arrest has been made pending the outcome of the investigation. Whitty said possible charges against the 14-year-old will depend on the autopsy results. Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call Sugar Land police at 281-275-2524 or Fort Bend Crime Stoppers at 281-342-8477. http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/2411664 I think I've found the dumbest police force in the Houston area. WTF does the official cause of death (which could be a number of things) have to do with anything? The cause of the cause of death was a blow to the jaw. Your thoughts?
well, i was just talking with a policeman who was telling me about these type of procedures. police are not allowed to make any medical diagnoses to determine death or injury, that is completely in the hands of medical personnel. This procedure comes after cases where police declare someone dead on the scene, put them in a body bag, to soon hear them screaming in the bag. likewise, police can't automatically blame the other guy until a medical report confirms it, just in case, in some freak case of nature, the kid had a heartattack from some drugs he took earlier. they blame the other guy prematurely, and the papers print it they could be sued, cases like these have won in the past so police have made it a strict procedure recently. the joke that the policeman made was that even if someone is dead on the scene, the most they can say is that the person is unconscious until medical personnel show up. one example was a guy they found torn to peices, body parts everywhere, his partner said, "i guess this guy is unconscious?" and he goes, "Yeah, he's extremely unconscious"
I've noticed that they never pronounce anyone "dead" until they get to the hospital and hook them up to the machines to make sure. Then all the official reports say they "died" at the hospital even though they were long gone by then. What I hate is, like in those examples, lawyers using the "well, he could have died from a freak heart attack" thing to get someone off the hook, even though everyone knows better.
What got me I guess is the suspect could flee all the while the police sit on their hands. This happened on February 6th. The police could have filed some charge against the suspect (he did break the kid's jaw) then upgraded it later upon death.
From working with the police at my job, I can confirm what others have said. Even if they find a guy stiff as a board with his head beaten in, say, lying by a dumpster at a nightclub in the morning, police can't say that he was killed by a blow to the head. Doesn't matter if there's a single bullethole through his forehead with no other visible injuries. Police can't even declare him dead, let alone what killed him until medical personnel declare the person dead and the medical examiner does an autopsy. For this reason, I don't believe a suspect can be charged with murder until those things have been completed. Otherwise, they could end up falsely accused. Police have to confer with the DA to figure out what charges they can bring; sometimes there just isn't enough evidence yet to arrest anybody even if there's an obvious suspect.
