Republican Rep. Ronny Jackson of Texas was handcuffed and dragged to the ground face-first by local law enforcement officers while he was trying to help a teenage girl in medical distress at a rodeo over the weekend.
Jackson, a doctor who previously served as the White House physician for Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, was rudely and roughly put in handcuffs at the White Deer Rodeo on Saturday while trying to assist the 15-year-old who had a seizure.
Linda Dianne Shouse, a home healthcare and traveling nurse, said her 15-year-old relative was “seizing due to possible hypoglycemia.” She said:
“We were just waiting for EMS to get there. The police came up, the deputies, highway patrol, and everyone was just screaming, ‘Get back, get back, get back.
Shouse said she was pushed and punched by a woman and said she saw a law enforcement official screaming in Jackson’s face, telling him to “Get the f**k back.”
“He was trying to tell them that he was a doctor and probably trying to tell him who he was, to be honest. “And they were screaming that they did not effing care who he was.
“And the next thing I knew, they had him on the ground, grabbed him by the shirt, threw him on the ground, face first into the concrete and had him in cuffs.
“We had the scene under control.
“We were just ready to give a report to EMS and get the patient out of there.
“And that’s not what happened.
“She wound up going eventually, but whenever you have someone laying there – when it could be neurological – time is on your hands.”
“Dr. Jackson sat in the stands during the entire rodeo, in full view of the assembled crowd, and was not drinking,” his office said.
“When Dr. Jackson arrived at the scene, there was a relative, who happened to be a nurse, already providing assistance. Dr. Jackson explained that he was a physician and asked her if she needed help, and she said yes.
“While assessing the patient in a very loud and chaotic environment, confusion developed with law enforcement on the scene and Dr. Jackson was briefly detained and was actually prevented from further assisting the patient,” the spokesperson said.
Republican Rep. Ronny Jackson of Texas was handcuffed and placed on the ground face-first by local law enforcement while he was trying to assist a teenage girl in medical distress at a rodeo over the weekend, according to a witness who spoke to CNN https://t.co/UyPlOjebtO
— CNN (@CNN) August 2, 2023
Rep. Ronny Jackson, was “briefly detained” by law enforcement while attending a rodeo, his office says, after being summoned to assist a 15-year-old girl who was having a medical emergency. https://t.co/PWTJHyptd9
— NBC News (@NBCNews) August 2, 2023