A Washington state woman who has been diagnosed with tuberculosis and refused numerous orders to isolate was spotted boarding a bus to a casino by an officer who had been tailing her and had a warrant for her arrest, according to a court filing obtained Wednesday.
Instead of arresting the woman, identified only as V.N. in documents filed in Pierce County Superior Court, the officer let her go and a local judge found her in contempt.
On Friday, Judge Philip K. Sorenson ordered that she be seized and treated against her will, online records show.
Authorities haven’t been able to find her, a Pierce County sheriff’s spokesman said in an email.
Tuberculosis, which once killed millions of people worldwide but declined to nearly 7,900 cases in the U.S. in 2021, can be deadly if left untreated. The bacterium that causes tuberculosis is spread through the air when a person with an active case coughs, sneezes or speaks.
It isn’t clear what casino V.N. went to or why the officer, who wasn’t identified in the filing, didn’t take her into custody. According to a declaration filed with the court from Patricia Jackson, the chief of the Pierce County Corrections Bureau, the officer had been tasked with surveilling the woman to execute the warrant “in a safe manner.”
“The officer began surveillance promptly following receipt of the warrant in March 2023 and observed a person they believed to be Respondent leave her residence, get onto a city bus, and arrive at a local casino,” Jackson said.
The officer continued to surveil V.N. but found she wasn’t home, Jackson said. V.N.’s relatives were unresponsive, Jackson said, and she told the officer to stop surveilling her.
“It is believed that the Respondent is actively avoiding execution of the warrant,” Jackson said.
Jackson didn’t say why the officer didn’t take V.N. into custody or why she asked him to stop surveilling her.
The sheriff’s spokesman, Sgt. Darren Moss, said his office “won’t comment on…
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