‘This is crazy,’ sobs Utah hospital nurse as cop roughs her up, arrests her for doing her job

[SketchMaster]

"Well, I missed out on McDonald's breakfast because of this. So SOMEBODY is getting arrested today!"

 

[senseamp]

She should sue. Taxpayers should be on the hook for employing this cop.

 

[JSt0rm]

you misspelled taxpayers. and no, he's going to keep his job.

yeah its bullshit taxpayers are on the hook for these incompetent cops. The police unions should set up funds that payout on the claims and not property owners.

 

[Paladin3]

First, I'm not too sorry for the nurse getting arrested. I'm more proud of her that she stood her ground and refused to comply with the unlawful blood draw. She was very brave to stand up against a cop for her patient and should be both proud of herself and pissed that she got arrested. Good people need to stand up against injustice. Applause for nurse Alex Wubbels and nurses in general.

Second, the man who had his blood drawn, assuming he did because the story doesn't say what eventually happened, is the real victim here. He is the one that had is constitutional rights violated when his blood was drawn without his consent or probable cause. He should be primary and the nurse secondary in any suit filed against the cop and the Salt Lake City Police Department.

Last, the fact that the cop is still on the job is indicative of a police department that doesn't comprehend the severity of the detective's misconduct in this incident. No civil discourse or calls for the police to rethink their treatment of hospital workers is going to solve this problem. Detective Jeff Payne, his supervisor(s) who instructed him to make the arrest, and the entire Salt Lake City PD need to understand that law enforcement officers breaking the law will not be tolerated. Only criminal charges, which were not filed, and meaningful sentences will accomplish this, IMHO.

 

[Stokely]

The real problem are all the other cops...who either were going along like little minions because they agreed with the main one, or were too scared to stand up to him (probably because all the rest of them and the police culture in general would treat them harshly). That's why whenever I hear the "there's always a few bad apples" horseshit it makes me want to vomit. They stand together in brotherhood. For all the lack of privacy that our camera-filled society gives us, at least it's some form of protection against those that are supposedly protecting us.

 

[Paladin3]

yeah its bullshit taxpayers are on the hook for these incompetent cops. The police unions should set up funds that payout on the claims and not property owners.

Money changing hands from the taxpayers to the violated will not resolve a crime like this and prevent similar from happening. Penalty (loss of job) and prosecution (if warranted) of the officer who swore to uphold the law and broke it instead is the only answer that will effect any real change.

Anyone who considers a career in law enforcement should understand that times have changed. Get educated on the law and actually uphold it or suffer real, direct consequences to your career, wallet and possible freedom for your crimes.

 

[PottedMeat]

i guess 99.99% of the time they don't get any resistance (but should) but this time they run into someone that follows the law

department’s blood draw unit

is it weird they have detectives in a unit that draws blood from a specific person and delivers it somewhere?

 

[interchange]

This makes me sick. The detective openly admitted there was no PC and that he felt a judge would not agree to give him a warrant. He arrested a nurse in order to do something he knew was illegal. Even if the nurse were wrong about the law or hospital policy, I applaud her for staunchly defending her patient's interest and should never face legal charges for doing that when there were other alternatives for police to seek the blood draw (warrant, go to nurse supervisor, etc.). For such, she should be recognized.

 

[brandonbull]

Trump's "law and order" America.

Seems like more of the the left over Obama and the Dems "we make up the rules as we go" crap.

 

[brandonbull]

The cop should be arrested for false imprisonment.

 

[pmv]

Everything else aside, I don't understand why they wanted the blood sample in the first place. Can anyone explain?

The article appears to be saying the burn victim was just an uninvolved truck driver, whom the suspect crashed into (can't help wondering about the wisdom of the police in pursuing the suspect in the first place, as that seems to be what led to the crash). It also says "The goal was reportedly to protect the trucker". It also mentions something about the cop thinking he had 'implied consent' (but he didn't because his knowledge of the law was a decade out-of-date). None of this is at all clear.

So are they saying the blood sample was wanted in order to prove the trucker _wasn't_ under the influence of anything? Why would that even be necessary, if the crash was caused by the suspect fleeing the police (and by the police's decision to pursue him)?

 

[Brainonska511]

Seems like more of the the left over Obama and the Dems "we make up the rules as we go" crap.

Trying to pass the buck? This is definitely indicative of the attitudes Trump amd Republicans have pushed over the years: the law (meaning the officer) is not wrong, and if you're the wrong person and your rights are violated, you probably deserved it.

But in the end, it really doesn't matter what administration started it. To immediately break down to partisan bickering is to miss the big fucking point: for too long, the veneration of cops coupled with a lack of accountability has created a toxic atmosphere of mistrust between officers and their communities and it continually allows bad actors to arbitrarily prey on people.

 

[pmv]

Trying to pass the buck? This is definitely indicative of the attitudes Trump amd Republicans have pushed over the years: the law (meaning the officer) is not wrong, and if you're the wrong person and your rights are violated, you probably deserved it.

But in the end, it really doesn't matter what administration started it. To immediately break down to partisan bickering is to miss the big fucking point: for too long, the veneration of cops coupled with a lack of accountability has created a toxic atmosphere of mistrust between officers and their communities and it continually allows bad actors to arbitrarily prey on people.

Interesting to see that US Republican supporters have the same tendency to blame everything that goes wrong on the previous administration as do the UK Tories.

But it seems to me the US Police have for a very long time had a general culture of viewing the public as the enemy, as if they are engaged in some sort of military occupation of a foreign country (hence all that surplus war-fighting equipment seems to fit right in). I can only presume the origin of this is down to some combination of the history of racial politics plus the wide availability of guns.

 

[bshole]

They wanted to draw blood to see if the victim was under the influence. No probable cause, no warrant, no consent.

The police have apologized and the offending officer has been suspended. This is appropriate thus far. A demotion or some other equally firm disciplinary action would be appropriate in this case. The officer's ignorance or perhaps disdain for the law is unacceptable.

 

[JSt0rm]

They wanted to draw blood to see if the victim was under the influence. No probable cause, no warrant, no consent.

The police have apologized and the offending officer has been suspended. This is appropriate thus far. A demotion or some other equally firm disciplinary action would be appropriate in this case. The officer's ignorance or perhaps disdain for the law is unacceptable.

Officers need to get blacklisted from working in other departments. There needs to be a national blacklist for bad cops.

 

[Meghan54]

Seems like more of the the left over Obama and the Dems "we make up the rules as we go" crap.

In Utah? LOL!!!!

 

[WHAMPOM]

You want a reason? Police departments don't hire the people who ace the entrance exam. They go for the middle man that obeys orders and will cover up fellow officer's criminal acts. Paranoid sexist power mongers preferred.

 

[Thebobo]

you misspelled taxpayers. ....

Call the police!

 

[FFFF]

Sounds like one that needs to be blamed for this incident is the lieutenant who gave the order to restrain her if she refuses, the officer just followed the orders from his superior.

 

[Perknose]

What is a cop obliged to do if he doesn't want to comply with an order from his superior? Not a rhetorical question. I honestly don't know.

Nuremberg set that precedent. We executed Germans under the rubric that "just following orders" is never a justifiable excuse.

 

[WHAMPOM]

They wanted to draw blood to see if the victim was under the influence. No probable cause, no warrant, no consent.

The police have apologized and the offending officer has been suspended. This is appropriate thus far. A demotion or some other equally firm disciplinary action would be appropriate in this case. The officer's ignorance or perhaps disdain for the law is unacceptable.

Start at the top, the lieutenant would not have ordered the arrest if he did think it OK with his superiors. Demotions and apologies should start at the top where the problems begin.

 

[crashtech]

This incident is peripherally related to the "War on Drugs," imo, charging people with victimless crimes is big business for law enforcement and carries relatively little risk compared to actually catching bad guys. If they find his blood has anything in it, they can charge the victim with crime(s) even though he didn't do anything wrong. Payday for them, life ruined for the victim.

 

[interchange]

They wanted to draw blood to see if the victim was under the influence. No probable cause, no warrant, no consent.

The police have apologized and the offending officer has been suspended. This is appropriate thus far. A demotion or some other equally firm disciplinary action would be appropriate in this case. The officer's ignorance or perhaps disdain for the law is unacceptable.

Hard for me to imagine ignorance here, but there is room to consider that. However, his treatment of the nurse is still detestable. She was advocating for a patient under her care, and there was no emergency to draw the patient's blood. He could easily have sought nursing supervision or detained her to draw the blood without arrest and without the physicality he displayed, and it appears from the evidence that he was not in a calm emotional state when taking these actions. Certainly for me this goes beyond mistake and thus needs some corrective response. Will have to wait and see what happens.

 

[pmv]

Nuremberg set that precedent. We executed Germans under the rubric that "just following orders" is never a justifiable excuse.

Yes, "only following orders" has had unfortunate connotations ever since.

But it's surely a valid point that you want to avoid the lower-ranks carrying the entire can while those who actually _gave_ the orders or set the tone get away with it. (I still wonder about abu ghraib in that respect.)

Edit - this is completely unsupported speculation from someone who doesn't know much about the legal context, but is there any possibility the police had a vested interest in wanting to 'prove' the victim was in some way in the wrong?

Given that otherwise part of the blame for the collision could be argued to lie with the police for engaging in a high-speed pursuit in the first place, it would be to their advantage if they found anything amiss in the victim's blood chemistry.

Do the police ever get sued in such situations?

 

[JimKiler]

What's also surprising is he think he'd be able to get a conviction with illegally obtained evidence. The nurse may very well have saved the case against the driver if they do wind up getting a warrant and it showing he was under the influence. The problem was he was so put off by due process that the window might have passed. I wonder how long getting a warrant would have taken?

They can get blood if the person is under arrest, cops arrest people without reason and nothing every happens, the detective should have gone that route.