Sometimes all i can do is shake my head...

[Fairportfan]

Store employee fired after 'booting' ambulance

One generally assumes that an ambulance with its lights flashing can park wherever it pleases. This past weekend in New Orleans, a parked ambulance was "booted" by a convenience store employee, who was apparently annoyed that the ambulance had parked in his store's lot. Never mind that the paramedics were treating a man inside the store. That employee has since been fired.

According to a report from WWLTV.com, the paramedics put the patient in the back of the ambulance and began to drive away when the vehicle came to a sudden stop. The medics saw that someone had put a boot on their vehicle. When a store employee finally removed the boot, the tire was flat. The paramedics had to call for backup while the man with chest pains waited in the back.

Jeb Tate, spokesman for New Orleans Emergency Medical Services, said, "We actually had to delay that patient's care by calling another ambulance out here to come transport this patient."

Now, a few days later, WWLTV.com reports that the convenience store employee has been fired and issued a citation by the New Orleans Police Department for simple criminal damage to property. According to the police report, the man, Ahmed Sidi Aleywa, claimed that he didn't know that the vehicle was an ambulance and that he doesn't speak English.

[Jabberwonky]

Ya don't have to be fluent in American to know what an ambulance is...

[Mark N]

Ya don't have to be fluent in American to know what an ambulance is...

No, but he might be fluent in STUPID. Either that or he is a cold blooded sociopath and though that it was funny.

[stjen]

What purpose does it serve for a convenience store (a la 7-11?) to actually possess a vehicle Boot in the first place? Let alone an employee whose job it is to apply it to vehicles in the parking lot? Stores like that want to get people in, purchase stuff, and get out quickly, so that more people can get in. If you boot a vehicle, it can't leave, which kind of defeats the purpose. Do they think that preventing them from leaving makes them go back in and buy some more? or that they'd pay an extra fee to get unbooted? Once word gets out that they hold cars for hostage, such a store would have zero customers very quickly.

It may be more than the employee with the boot was stupid, I'd include the store operators that provided the boot in the first place.

[Fairportfan]

No, a lot of such places have (or think they have) problems with people parking in their lots to go to places that don't have lots, or whose lots are full.

Most have signs saying "Illegally or improperly parked vehicles will be towed away at owner's expense" - the boot is to make sure they don't escape before the tow truck can get there.

[NOTDilbert]

Why wasn't this guy charged with "interfering with the duty of....." charges? EMT's/firemen, etc.- isn't it still unlawful? And I don't care HOW foreign he is - he is LYING if he says he doesn't recognize and ambulance or uniformed specs tending a medical emergency. The Public Prosecutor's Office can guarantee him a lawyer that speaks whatever he speaks, and a court appearance, plus whatever additional charges the heart attack victim (remember him?) chooses to bring, and the resulting jail time/fines, will guarantee that HE WILL LEARN what an ambulance is, and what is does, for good and all.

Yes, I am slandering him by calling him a liar. This is the twenty-first century. He lives in the USA. He holds a job (or did). I repeat, he is LYING.

[Mark N]

Why wasn't this guy charged with "interfering with the duty of....." charges? EMT's/firemen, etc.- isn't it still unlawful? And I don't care HOW foreign he is - he is LYING if he says he doesn't recognize and ambulance or uniformed specs tending a medical emergency. The Public Prosecutor's Office can guarantee him a lawyer that speaks whatever he speaks, and a court appearance, plus whatever additional charges the heart attack victim (remember him?) chooses to bring, and the resulting jail time/fines, will guarantee that HE WILL LEARN what an ambulance is, and what is does, for good and all.

Yes, I am slandering him by calling him a liar. This is the twenty-first century. He lives in the USA. He holds a job (or did). I repeat, he is LYING.

As to the list of charges, it may just be a leave out error on the part of the Newspaper. They are known to forget to put in all the relevant data and get people pissed off.
It is also possible that further charges are pending and the paper has not been filled in on them for various reasons (like there is no law that says that they have to know everything)