Doctors refuse to pump Terrance Fleetwood stomach despite search warrant - Suspected of swallowing narcotics

Milwaukee police officers who were chasing Terrance Fleetwood last winter were sure they saw him swallow a bag of suspected cocaine.

So sure, they persuaded a judge to sign a search warrant to perform a surgical procedure on Fleetwood to retrieve the suspected contraband by sucking it from his stomach up through his nose.

The case came to light this month when the search warrant was finally filed.

Fleetwood's attorney, Bridget Boyle, said it was the first and only time she's ever seen police seek, and get, a warrant to have something as serious as nasogastric aspiration done to get evidence from a suspect.

"Thankfully, the doctors refused to do it," Boyle said recently.

Instead, cops watched Fleetwood in the hospital for five days, checking everything he passed and his blood for evidence of cocaine.

According to the warrant and a criminal complaint later filed against Fleetwood:

Officers Ryan DeWitt and Kenton Burtch were on routine patrol the night of Feb. 21 around N. 30th St. and W. Wisconsin Ave. when they saw Fleetwood running. He didn't stop when ordered. Burtch said he saw Fleetwood slow down, put his head back and apparently swallow a baggie of cocaine.

The officers arrested Fleetwood and took him to a hospital, where he was "uncooperative." But he did tell another officer, Scott Wieting, that he had swallowed "eight dime bags," and that if Wieting would help him dispose of the drugs, he would make Wieting an "all star" by providing information on drugs, guns and homicides. Fleetwood suggested he could vomit the drugs up if Wieting would take them away and hide them or flush them down a toilet.

Meanwhile, DeWitt and Burtch were writing an affidavit for a warrant to pump Fleetwood's stomach. In it, they revealed that on the way to the hospital, Fleetwood asked what hospital staff would do to recover what the officers believed he had swallowed.

The warrant was signed at 1:47 a.m. on Feb. 22 by Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Ellen Brostrom.

When doctors refused to do the invasive procedure without Fleetwood's consent, police started their around-the-clock monitoring. But at the end of the five days, Boyle said, they had not recovered any drugs or a plastic bag, or seen any sign of cocaine in Fleetwood's blood.

But that wasn't the end for Fleetwood.

On March 1, he was charged with possession with intent to distribute cocaine, two counts of obstructing or resisting an officer, and bribery of a public official, on the allegations of offering Wieting information on other crimes in exchange for help hiding the drugs Fleetwood said he'd swallowed.

The complaint cites case law about circumstantial evidence as a basis for Fleetwood's possession charge.

In June, Fleetwood pleaded guilty to the obstructing counts, both misdemeanors, and the other charges were dismissed. He was sentenced to 18 months in the House of Correction, with credit for 118 days.

A spokesman for Aurora Sinai Medical Center said federal medical privacy laws barred him from discussing Fleetwood's stay at the hospital, or confirming whether doctors declined to pump his stomach pursuant to the search warrant.

Kaivon Yazdani, the prosecutor in the case, now working in private practice, said he couldn't recall if other drug cases he handled involved requests for stomach pumping during his year with the district attorney's office.