Grandmother battling alcoholism is left battered and bruised during run-in with cops after asking her husband to call 911 because she'd relapsed and needed to be taken to rehab
A California grandmother battling alcoholism was left covered in bruises after she relapsed and asked her husband to call 911 to take her to rehab.
Instead of being taken to a medical facility to be detoxified and undergo treatment, Jolynn McCabe says she was restrained by police and hauled off to jail, where she ended up suffering extensive injuries to her face during a scuffle with a deputy.
But a spokesperson for the Fremont Police Department offered a different version of events, telling DailyMail.com in a phone interview on Tuesday that McCabe's husband placed a call reporting a domestic disturbance, telling a dispatcher that his wife was trying to hit him, which is why officers responded to the scene instead of paramedics from the fire department.
A representative of the Alameda County Sheriff's Office, which runs the local jail, also dismissed McCabe's claims that she was injured at the hands of a deputy and then denied medical care.
Photos taken in September show Jolynn McCabe, 56, with extensive bruises on her face after her run-in with police officers and sheriff's deputies in California
Purple and yellow bruising is seen on the woman' shoulder following her encounter with police and deputies
Jolynn has been battling alcoholism for 16 years and experienced a relapse in September, which prompted her husband, Keith (right), to call 911 for help
McCabe, 56, who lives in Fremont, California, with her husband, Keith, has struggled with alcohol addiction for 16 years. On September 13, she experienced a crisis and tried to seek help, she told KTVU.
Keith McCabe told the station he dialed 911, expecting to have paramedics dispatched to their home in an ambulance to take his wife to a rehabilitation facility. Instead, police vehicles showed up outside their door.
He explained that he decided against driving his wife himself because the last time he tried doing it during one of her episodes, she jumped out of the car.
'I wanted help,' Jolynn told the station. 'We called for help. This was not the kind of help we wanted.'
In an incident report, the Fremont Police Department described Jolynn as being 'combative,' 'assaultive',' 'hostile' and 'uncooperative.'
Geneva Bosques, a public information officer with the Fremont Police Department, told DailyMail.com in a phone interview that on Keith's 911 call, the man said his wife was 'combative' and was trying to hit him, so it was classified as a domestic disturbance call because it contained information about potential violence.
Bosques said the local department was very familiar with Jolynn, and that between September and October 2020, police received a total of five calls for service from her address.
On one occasion in October - weeks after the arrest - Jolynn reportedly asked two police officers to accompany her to a hospital and wait with her 'to keep her calm.'
During the September incident, three responding officers repeatedly asked Jolynn to get back inside her house because she was severely intoxicated, but according to police, the woman went outside and stood in the middle of the street, yelling 'vulgarities' at them.
Police were forced to close the road to traffic and ended up arresting the woman on suspicion of being drunk in public.
‘We really didn’t want to arrest her,' Bosques told DailyMail.com. 'It was not our intention at all.’
Police initially transported Jolynn to a hospital to get a medical clearance for her arrest, then had to use a full-body restraint on the 115-pound grandmother to take her to Santa Rita jail.
The police spokesperson said Jolynn suffered no injuries during the restraint, which was meant to prevent her from harming herself and others in transport.
Bosques also noted that due to Jolynn's level of intoxication and combative behavior, no rehabilitation facility would have taken her in at that time.
Jolynn was allegedly combative and hostile when police officers arrived at her home in Fremont, California, on September 13
The situation further escalated inside the detention facility, where Jolynn said she experienced an anxiety attack and refused to enter a cell. She pleaded with staff to not shut the door and give her some time to adjust to the small space.
According to a report, Jolynn stuck both her arms and her right leg out of the cell, and grabbed a deputy's thumb, preventing the door from closing. A struggle ensued, during which another deputy allegedly took her to the ground, resulting in a golf ball-sized swelling above her right eyebrow.
The incident report stated that two nurses were called to examine Jolynn and cleared her for further incarceration.
Jolynn said she kept calling for the deputies to provide medical aid for her injuries, but they were ignoring her pleas.
A spokesperson for the Alameda County Sheriff's Office denied Jolynn's claims.
'Her injuries are self induced due to her own behavior,' he said in an email to DailyMail.com. 'Our staff acted 100% with compassion and care for this individual. It is all on body camera and internal camera. We also did an investigation that found no wrongdoing.'
Eventually, the woman was taken to a nearby hospital. After receiving treatment, Jolynn was put in a cab and sent home, where her husband was shocked to see the state she was in.
The 115-pound grandmother (left) was restrained and hauled off to jail, where she got into an altercation with deputies and was taken to the ground
McCabe says she still suffers from nerve damage, blurry vision and headaches
'It looked like someone just beat the heck out of her,' Keith said. 'I was livid.'
Photos taken around that time show large purple and yellow bruises around the grandmother's eyes, on her forehead and on her left shoulder.
The next day, Jolynn checked herself into a rehabilitation facility in Berkeley.
McCabe was never criminally charged in connection to the incident by the district attorney's office. Nearly three moths later, she says she has nerve damage and suffers from daily headaches, blurry vision and nightmares.
The woman is now considering pursuing legal action against the local authorities, and she says she will never call 911 for help again.
The Fremont police spokesperson said the department has no plans to release the 911 call and body camera video from the incident because officials do not wish to make the woman feel worse.
'We're just really happy to see she has received some help and we wish her success in her recovery,' Bosques said.
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