X-rays of my wife's shattered arm provide dramatic evidence of the trauma rogue cops can leave behind

X-rays of Carol Shuler's broken arm, courtesy of a
Missouri deputy. The area to the left of the screw
that is pointing up at an angle reveals multiple
fractures, probably four or five.
(X-ray from Cox South Medical Center, Springfield, MO,
from the staff of trauma surgeon Dr. Brian Buck.)

Since a Ferguson, Missouri, police officer fatally shot Michael Brown in August 2014, Americans have been inundated with stories about the victims of excessive force, police brutality, and other forms of law-enforcement misconduct. We are about to show you images of the physical wreckage thug cops can leave behind--and we will do it in a dramatic form that I do not believe has been used at any other news site.

Ironically, this also involves a Missouri style of police brutality, in Springfield (Greene County), in the southwest corner of the state. That's where some half dozen deputies from the Greene County Sheriff's Department, including Sheriff Jim Arnott himself, conducted an unlawful eviction on September 9 that played out like an orchestrated terror attack.

My wife, Carol, and I had at least one assault rifle aimed at us, along with five or six handguns. We both were handcuffed, even though we were not alleged to have committed any crime, and the eviction itself was unlawfully scheduled during the 10-day post-judgment window when no such action can take place under Missouri law. On top of that, we had filed a Notice of Appeal and timely served attorneys for all parties, putting an automatic stay on the eviction. In other words, deputies had no lawful grounds to be on our rented property on September 9.

But a veritable SWAT team invaded our residence anyway, and in the ensuing chaos, Carol's left arm was so badly broken that it required the expertise of Dr. Brian Buck, a trauma surgeon from Cox South Hospital in Springfield (and the University of Missouri) to piece it back together. Carol's caregivers have told her that the goal with such a serious break is to restore her arm to 95 percent use--and that would be a best-case scenario. The chances that her arm will return to normal appear slim.

What did Carol's arm look like immediately after a Greene County deputy had slammed her to the ground and twisted both of her arms behind her--all because she was trying to retrieve our cat's litter box? I can't provide an exact answer to that question because I have not seen those X-rays. I have seen that her right arm (the one not broken) was purple over more than half its surface from bruising. And Carol has told me that, in the hours immediately after the assault by cops, her left arm was almost black from the elbow up, with a large bump where at least one bone apparently was close to breaking through the skin.

We can, however, show you exactly what her arm looks like now--on the inside--with all of the hardware required to repair the damage. During a followup visit on October 8, Dr. Buck's staff took several X-rays and gave us copies. Carol's recovery seems to be going about as well as we could hope. But the X-rays--even after surgery--give an idea of the kind of damage with which Dr. Buck and his team were faced. And they reflect the brutality with which an officer, who has the duty to "protect and serve," treated a 55-year-old woman who simply was trying to make sure our cat had a place to use the bathroom as the three of us stared homelessness in the face.

I don't have the medical expertise to provide a detailed commentary on the image above--and on the images that will be featured in upcoming posts.. But I don't think it will be hard for you to see the damage for yourself. When Carol asked Dr. Buck exactly how many places her arm had been broken, his answer was "enough." One of his assistants looked at one of the X-rays and pointed to four or five lines that represented fractures.

In the image at the beginning of this post, most of the fractures are to the left of what appears to be a loose screw, with its point heading upward at a slight right-to-left angle. The screw, of course, is not loose; it's one of at least nine screws you can see on this image to hold Carol's shattered bone in place. But the "loose screw" is a good reference point because much of the damages--apparently four or five fractures--are just to its left.

You can see the damage even more clearly on an image for an upcoming post.


(To be continued)