Chaos at Cottage Hospital yesterday afternoon
as Jackson fans and journos throng
“Mr. Jackson's back has spurred up on him again,” said Jackson spokeswoman Raymone K. Bain “It’s pretty serious. It was serious enough for him to come over here.”
“Here” being Santa Ynez Valley Cottage Hospital near Solvang, several miles from Neverland. Jackson arrived around 2:30pm yesterday.
“He's under a tremendous amount of stress right now,” Baine said. “Other than his back, he is doing fine.”
By the time Jackson departed a few minutes after 8pm, a throng of more than 100 fans, news media, and an angry neighbor who threatened to hose everyone down with water, had gathered.
Jackson’s arrival was fairly low-key. He’d arrived in a white Land Rover accompanied by only one bodyguard and one umbrella. But a presidential-level security team trickled in throughout the late afternoon. There was a security guy in a black suit, squatting behind an electrical utility box, scanning the horizon with one hand held over his brow, looking for all the world like Cochise keeping an eye out for the U.S. Cavalry.
It took more than half an hour for Jackson aides to erect hospital screens and bed sheets to make sure than none of the photographers and fans, held at bay a couple of hundred yards away, might snap a shot of Jackson walking less than three feet from the hospital’s front door to his midnight black SUV.
Things turned ugly as Jackson’s motorcade pulled out of the hospital parking lot. Photographers and fans chased the car, amid screams and cheers, banging in its windows to attract Michael’s attention. Santa Barbara sheriff’s deputies moved in, led one photographer away. That black-suited security guard took a swing at the jurno while a fan screamed of Jackson “Leave him alone! He’s human! Just like you!”
It was Jackson’s fourth hospital run since jury selection in his child molestation trial began in January. His back problems began with what was called a fall in the shower in March while preparing for a day of testimony by his teenage accuser. That’s the day Jackson arrived late at court, in his pajama bottoms, under threat of arrest by an angry Judge Melville. He’d also been taken to Marian Medical Center in Santa Maria in February with “flu-like symptoms.”
Last Thursday night, Jackson spent hours at Cottage Hospital, an IV in his arm, being given electrolytes for dehydration on the suggestion of family friend Dick Gregory who spent the day in court.
A play for sympathy?
Seems strange that if this was an emergency, one network had been tipped off so early that its camera crew got bored and left before Jackson arrived at Cottage Hospital. Remember, Jurors begin their first full day of deliberations at 8:30 this morning. The 8 women and 4 men chose a spokesperson on Friday before adjourning for the weekend.
Rev. Jesse Jackson has arrived in Santa Maria to meet with Michael and continue the daily prayer vigils they’ve engaged in for months.
This morning, KNX anchors Dave Williams and Vicky Moore spoke with Jackson, live, on Southern California’s Morning News about Michael’s health and the prospects of justice in this case. Click here to listen to the interview in your RealPlayer.
Rev. Jackson telling us here this morning, “Michael is very focused on this trial. He knows the gravity of the trial. He knows it will either be acquittal or imprisonment. He is convinced of his innocence, convinced that if the jury uses the standard of reasonable doubt he will prevail in this situation. But it is a very ‘crossroads moment’ in his life.”
Where’s my son? A worried dad
triggers a scrum at the courthouse
Fans, reporters — stampeded to a back entrance of the courthouse trailing Michael Jackson’s dad Joe late morning. Jackson’s father looked bewildered, asking, “Where’s my son?”
Turns out he’d seen Michael’s fleet of black SUVs driving out of Neverland’s gates and thought there had been a verdict. Turns out the SUVs were simply dirty and were being taken out for a wash. Sheriff’s deputies were totally ticked at cameramen who’d crossed the Approved Camera Zone borders and have threatened to do away with the live audio feed of court clerk Lorna Frey reading the verdict when it comes down.
It’s a mark of the volatile conditions here at the courthouse — the slightest hiccup can trigger near-panic as fans and hundreds of journalists swarm around the epicenter of this trial — the jury room where 8 women and 4 men will continue their deliberations at 8:30 Tuesday morning.
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