From now on, anyone who gets pepper-sprayed by Fort Lauderdale police must be taken to a hospital emergency room by Fort Lauderdale Fire-Rescue medics.

The new rule comes after a 21-year-old man collapsed and died outside the city jail in April. He had just been pepper-sprayed by police.

"Obviously, the purpose here is we want to be cautious to the extreme to make sure anyone in custody is going to be safe," Assistant Police Chief Chuck Drago said Thursday. "We don't want it to be an issue that's decided at a scene. We'd rather have a strict policy guiding the officers, firefighters and paramedics as to how we want these issues handled. There's no more decision-making by folks at the scene, it's in black and white."

Fire Chief Otis Latin agreed.

"From the standpoint of [patients] in custody, we didn't have a policy. We wanted to make sure that we had something that would outline how we will react and proceed."

The new policy covers more than just pepper-spray cases. The fire chief's memo, which was distributed at the end of August, instructs medics to transport patient prisoners any time police officers call them. The police department's rule was issued as a general order about the same time.

"If p.d. calls us, we're going to evaluate that patient, take them to the hospital, and we're going to have p.d. ride with us," Latin said.

Such specific rules were not in place the night Raymond Sterling Jr. died.

Sterling was driving with a suspended license on the morning of April 19 and ran from police after they pulled him over. He struggled with officers after a brief chase and then got pepper-sprayed when he refused to get into a police car, a department spokesman said.

Officers called the medics to the jail when Sterling complained of feeling poorly. Two paramedics, Keith Webster and Mike Bucher, gave Sterling a cursory check and left the jail. A few minutes later Sterling collapsed. The police called the fire department back and four paramedics responded -- Webster, Bucher, Lt. Michael Hicks and Driver Engineer Walter Schrubb. They pronounced Sterling dead without trying to revive him. The fire chief fired all four paramedics this month, saying their inaction violated countywide emergency medical protocols.

When police and fire officials and the State Attorney's Office began investigating Sterling's death, a glaring discrepancy between the police officers and paramedics came to light. The medics said they did not take Sterling to the hospital because the police officers offered to take him. The police officers said they were trying to get Sterling to the hospital on their own because the medics left without taking him. None of the police officers involved in the case have been disciplined.

Police union President Tom Mangifesta said the new policy will prevent similar problems from arising in the future, but he thinks it is unnecessary for paramedics to take every pepper-sprayed prisoner to the hospital and to make one police officer ride in the rescue truck and another follow in a patrol car. It will waste time and money, he said.

"They just want to take certain precautions to see you don't have another Sterling case," Mangifesta said. "You don't know the guy's medical history that you're spraying. God forbid another Sterling case comes along, but those are few and far between, thankfully. They all do it because they're watching out for the mighty lawsuit. That's what it boils down to."

The Sterling family's high-profile lawyer, Willie Gary, notified the cash-strapped city this week the family intends to sue for medical malpractice.

"The big question is going to be if we have to call paramedics and transport in an ambulance every single person that gets pepper-sprayed, what about the officers that get part of the spray?" Mangifesta said. "Are they going to be transported and evaluated?"

Fire-Rescue union President Ian Kemp could not be reached for comment on the policy, but the rank-and-file are fuming after the fire chief fired four of their colleagues, and Thursday Kemp issued a news release calling for Latin's resignation.

Latin said he will not quit, that he's been a good chief for six years, and he would like to know more about why the union has no confidence in him.

Toni Pompa, Sterling's aunt, said she did not understand why the police union president, or anyone, would object to the city taking precautions to prevent another death.

Her nephew died because his red blood cells sickled, or became misshapen, after physical exertion that cut off oxygen flow to his body, according to Deputy Chief Medical Director Michael Bell. The pepper spray contributed to his death, Bell said.

"There's no way of telling who it's deadly for and who it's not," Pompa said. "Hopefully that policy will save lives. Hopefully, it'll make them think twice before they use [pepper spray] because they won't want the hassle, the extra step."

Shannon O'Boye can be reach at soboye@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4597.

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