Where is the outrage???

I like reading news of the weird because most times the stories are good for a 'WTF???' moment or a heart-healthy laugh. Reading yesterday I was stunned and a bit outraged by the story. Oddly enough, while reading it I totally expected this story to be from another country. It was not. It happened right here in Arkansas...please, no Arkansas jokes. I have relatives there but I seriously doubt any are this dense! Also, if this were an American citizen...more people would be talking about it. If this were a white soccer mom from the suburbs, the roof would have been blown off the courthouse.

The story is about a woman, Adriana Torres-Flores, an illegal alien who was arrested. She was placed in a 9.5-by-10.5-foot holding cell.

For those of you who have never had the pleasure (I totally plead the 5th here), holding cells are very basic...no bed, sometimes no restrooms (this one did NOT have a toilet), no windows either. It's just the person, with a bench, in what sometimes amounts to a closet. But it's temporary so not a big deal...UNLESS the friggin' cop FORGETS you are in there!!!

Adriana Torres-Flores sat in that closet cell without food, water, a toilet, no bed or anything for FOUR days! She was placed in custody on Thursday and re-discovered on Monday because they went to place another prisoner in the cell. No one heard her screaming and crying for help...for four days!

I know some will say she's an illegal alien and doesn't deserve great treatment but as a human being, I feel she deserved to be treated decent.

Even worse, the cop who forgot about her was only placed on unpaid administrative leave. The sheriff said it was not purposefully done and should be treated as a learning experience.

That woman could have died. If she were diabetic, she would have died. She had been arrested for selling pirated CDs, she was NOT some major criminal and a danger to society. I can't imagine the nightmares she will have for all those hours she spent wondering if someone would remember her.

I agree illegal aliens should be sent back to their original countries but we should respect a human being enough to treat them well. Such a holding cell where you can't hear the person should not be made. A cop can get busy and forget, this is why you should have either a camera to monitor that cell or people should be clearly heard from the cell.

You can read the story yourself here http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/03/11/national/a111950D05.DTL.