Support for Juana Villegas

PETITION IN SUPPORT OF JUANA VILLEGAS

Davidson County Sheriff Daron Hall and Berry Hill Police Chief Robert Bennett:

WHEREAS, we are members of the Nashville community who are deeply concerned about our community’s treatment of Juana Villegas:

She was separated from her children, arrested, and taken to jail by Berry Hill Police Officer Coleman for not having a driver’s license, even though she was nine months pregnant and produced valid photo identification.

She was chained to her bed during labor, was not allowed to call her husband so that he could support her during labor and share in the joy of their son’s birth, and had her legs shackled together shortly after the birth. The sheriff’s department not only deprived Juana and her family of the full joy of this event, but attempted to transform it into a shameful and degrading experience.

Juana was separated from her newborn for almost two days. She was not allowed to take with her to jail a breast pump, which she was advised to use by her hospital caregivers, resulting in severe pain and a breast infection.

We understand that medical caregivers at the hospital protested these measures, and that nurses cried because of the conditions Juana was forced to endure.

Thus far, based on your public statements and those of your representatives, we understand that you consider these events to be consistent with applicable policies and the manner in which we intend to act as a community in the future. This is not acceptable to us.

We are disappointed that you, the leaders of our community who are best able to respond to these events, have not expressed any sympathy for Juana or a desire for our community to act differently in the future. We believe that our community must respond to these events and change the way it treats our neighbors like Juana Villegas.

THEREFORE, we call upon you to take the following actions:

(1) work together with local police whose arrestees are taken to the Metro jail to ensure that minor traffic infractions and other misdemeanors, which should result in written citations, do not result in arrests;

(2) educate magistrates, who should be releasing arrestees who should have been given written citations instead of arrest, about their responsibilities under applicable law and help ensure that they are held accountable when they do not exercise their responsibilities properly;

(3) revise the sheriff’s department policies regarding the treatment of arrestees during labor, childbirth, and while they are nursing to ensure those policies are decent and humane; and

(4) speak publicly out of concern for what happened to Juana Villegas and make it clear throughout our entire community that Nashville will not again subject our neighbors to the kind of treatment Juana received.