Flamboyant former Chicago alderman and civil rights activist Dorothy Tillman was arrested Sunday in her native Montgomery, Ala., charged with criminal trespassing after a confrontation with hospital officials about Tillman’s 86-year-old ailing aunt.
Tillman, best known for her colorful hats, spent 102 minutes in the Montgomery city jail before a local pastor posted Tillman’s $300 bail, jail officials said.
She was charged with criminal trespassing, a misdemeanor, Montgomery police Lt. Ron Cook said.
The fracas unfolded in the emergency room’s waiting area.
Tillman had taken her aunt, Mabel Barker, to the emergency room the previous evening. Frustrated by an overnight stay that she said yielded little treatment, Tillman requested the medical records when hospital officials discharged Barker.
She said she hoped to take her aunt to another hospital for treatment. Tillman said she was told the records were not immediately available. Jackson Hospital policy requires that requests for medical records be made in writing, spokesman Peter Frohmader said.
Unfazed, Tillman said she continued to request the records. A nursing supervisor alerted hospital security. They in turn notified police officers when they could not subdue Tillman, according to police and hospital officials.
Tillman disputed such characterizations, saying she was mindful of not upsetting her aunt.
“I don’t think I was screaming. I didn’t go like crazy, crazy,” Tillman said. Tillman said she was arrested and put in “leg chains and shackles.”
“It was really something,” Tillman said. “They did the real police thing.”
What next?
Tillman, 60, returned to Chicago and said she planned to seek medical attention Monday. “They knocked me down on the ground. They knocked my hat off. One of them put his knees on my spine and threatened to Taser me,” Tillman said in a phone interview.
