Scanning electron micrograph of Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria, which cause TB.
A woman with an untreated infectious case of tuberculosis and a months-old civil warrant out for her arrest continues to evade the sheriff’s department in Tacoma, Washington, drawing local frustration.
On Friday, the woman failed to show up to yet another court hearing, to which she has been summoned on a roughly monthly basis since January 2022. That’s when the county health department began using court orders to try to compel her to get her deadly respiratory infection treated and/or remain in isolation to protect the public until she is no longer infectious.
Pierce County Superior Court Judge Philip Sorensen ruled once again Friday that the woman—known only by the initials “V.N.” in court documents—was in contempt of those court orders. Sorensen had initially issued a civil arrest warrant on March 2, 2023, ordering her to involuntary detention for testing and treatment. He extended the warrant Friday.
In an opinion piece on Saturday, Matt Driscoll, the opinion editor for local outlet The News Tribune, wrote that the situation has “far surpassed” the “point of ridiculousness.” Driscoll called out local law enforcement for not apprehending the woman after lengthy efforts to get her to comply with health measures and nearly three months after Sorensen issued the arrest warrant.
“[T]he time for excuses has passed,” he wrote, calling the woman’s case “a unique and potentially dangerous rarity that Pierce County’s public health system and the courts provide a remedy for.”
Pierce County Sheriff’s spokesperson Sgt. Darren Moss told a reporter for the outlet that when (or maybe if) “V.N.” is apprehended, she will go to the Pierce County Jail, where she can be held in one of two negative-pressure rooms that help prevent the spread of airborne infections.
Driscoll spoke with Moss as well and pressed him on why the department had yet to apprehend “V.N.” The fact seems particularly frustrating to Driscoll given that court documents last month revealed law enforcement had surveilled “V.N.,” observing her getting on a city bus—potentially exposing fellow riders to a deadly bacterial infection—and then arriving at a local casino. Despite the observation, law enforcement didn’t execute the arrest warrant then. And since that trip, law enforcement said the woman has been actively evading them.
Is it a priority?
Moss told Driscoll that the surveillance information should have never been made public because it could have potentially hindered efforts to apprehend “V.N.”
“We have a team that was on it, but if they can’t find her, at some point, you know, how much effort should we put into that versus the homicide guy that we arrested two days ago? Or we had a guy who severely beat a woman and was on the run, almost beat her to death, and we had to go look for him,” Moss told Driscoll. “Is it a priority? Somewhat. … But it’s a civil [warrant] versus a criminal warrant for something like attempted murder, assault or first-degree robbery, so it’s like, when we have time we get to it.”
After “V.N.” failed once again to show up to a court hearing Friday, Moss told the outlet: “She’s refusing to turn herself in, (her) attorney’s not making her come in and the family’s not helping as well. … If we can’t find her, we can’t arrest her. If we knew where she was, she would be in custody.”
In an email to Ars Tuesday, Moss confirmed that the department was still trying to locate “V.N.” and detain her. “I cannot give out any information as to how we are trying to locate her, where we are looking or any other details as it can ruin the efforts by our deputies.” He added that the only update they can provide is “when she is taken into custody.”
Tuberculosis is a potentially life-threatening infection caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis. It spreads through the air when an infected person coughs, sneezes, spits, or otherwise launches bacterial cells in the airspace around them. While just a few bacterial cells can spark an infection, people are most at risk from prolonged contact with an infected person. Treatment requires lengthy antibiotic courses, spanning four to up to 20 months, depending on whether the bacteria have developed resistance.
Court documents indicate that “V.N.” had started treatment at some point but did not complete it, increasing the risk of her infection becoming resistant to antibiotics. X-rays from January of this year indicated that her case of tuberculosis was progressively worsening, according to court documents.
Tuberculosis killed 1.6 million people in 2021, according to the World Health Organization. It is one of the top infectious disease killers in the world. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported a provisional count of 8,300 US cases in 2022, an increase from 7,874 cases reported in 2021. There were 600 tuberculosis deaths in the US in 2020. Washington state averages around 200 cases per year, and Pierce County averages about 20, the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department reported.