Law enforcement in Washington state have finally apprehended a Tacoma woman with tuberculosis who has been refusing treatment and isolation for more than a year and has spent the last few months actively trying to evade the sheriff’s efforts to execute a civil warrant against her .
She is now being held at the Pierce County Jail, Nigel Turner, division director of infectious disease control for the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department, said in an update late Thursday.
“She will be housed in a room specially equipped for isolation, testing and treatment. We are hopeful that she will choose to receive the life-saving treatment she needs to manage her tuberculosis,” he added. He also thanked local law enforcement officials for “supporting public health with this necessary intervention.”
Pierce County Sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Darren Moss told Ars via email on Friday that the woman had been taken into custody at her home without incident. “She was transported in a vehicle with the air separated between the cabin and the rear of the vehicle,” he added. A press release from the sheriff’s department noted that deputies had placed her in “a negative pressure chamber at the Pierce County jail, where she will receive treatment as ordered by a Judge of the Pierce County Superior Court.”
Last last resort
The woman’s legal story dates back to January 2022, when the health department resorted to court orders to try to get her to treat her deadly infection — or at least prevent her from easily spreading it in the community. “The local health official ordered [the woman] self-isolate and treat; which she refused to do. [The woman] has failed to comply with such efforts, has discontinued treatment and is unwilling to resume treatment or self-isolate voluntarily,” court documents from January 2022 said.
Pierce County Superior Court Judge Philip Sorensen issued an involuntary isolation order on January 19, 2022, but it did little to help. The woman continued to refuse treatment and isolation, leading to a steady stream of renewed court orders in 2022.
In January, the department seemed to reach a breaking point after the woman was involved in a car accident as a passenger – clearly indicating that she was not in isolation. She went to an emergency department the next day complaining of chest pains, and X-rays revealed that her tuberculosis infection was progressing. She did not tell the medical staff at the hospital about her infection and they initially thought she had cancer based on the condition of her lungs.
On Jan. 20, Sorensen said that if she failed to follow court orders, she could face electronic home surveillance or possible jail time. That ultimatum was not heeded. On March 2, Sorensen upheld a finding of contempt and issued a civil warrant to involuntarily detain her in a facility that could safely house her for isolation, testing and treatment. Turner called the move “the very, very last option”.
But even an arrest warrant was not enough. The woman began to evade law enforcement officers trying to safely carry out the order. Meanwhile, she continued to disobey orders to self-isolate — a law enforcement agent who was watching the woman watched her take a city bus to a local casino. The months-long attempt to apprehend the woman sparked some local frustration, with a local news outlet’s opinion editor writing that “the time for apologies has passed”.
Tuberculosis is a potentially life-threatening infection caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which often infects the lungs and can spread through the air at close range. The infection will kill 1.6 million people by 2021, according to the World Health Organization, and is one of the biggest killers of infectious diseases in the world.
