Way to go, Barney Fife. This is getting reported in Russia, for crying out loud. Tar, feathers.
Ya know, I'm so old that I remember when it was the Russian cops that terrorized law abiding citizens. The only thing that could have made this worse would have been if the cop had busted down her door in the middle of the night or rolled out the old "So ... you haff relatifs in Provo, ja?" gambit.
But it seems that Our Hero is in a world of hurt:
Salt Lake City’s mayor and police chief apologized Friday for an officer handcuffing a hospital nurse for refusing a blood draw from an unconscious patient.
Police Chief Mike Brown said in a statement, “I was alarmed by what I saw in the video with our officer and Ms. [Alex] Wubbles. I am sad at the rift this has caused between law-enforcement and the nurses we work so closely with. I want to be clear, we take this very seriously.”Rule #1: Don't make it so that the Boss has to make a public apology. Rule #2: REALLY don't make it so the Boss' Boss has to make a public apology. I see a long career ahead for Detective Jeff Payne, as a Meter Maid.
22 comments:
I see no significant change in Office Payne's career. He may get shuffled off to the side for at most a couple of months, but he'll be back on the ol' career ladder as soon as this blows over. And don't expect the Salt Lake City media to remember this in another month. They know full well what the Only Ones truly are, but they also understand that they and their employees won't be touched, and they sure don't give a damn about the Mere Citizens.
Officer Payne is still on the force, still active. This incident won't have an adverse effect on his career.
The nurse will sue, and the suit will be quietly settled out of court.
What probably will happen is that other medical personnel will remember how the nurse was treated, and the next time a cop gets injured and lands in the ER, that cop will get treatment alright. But it won't be gentle, and it won't be considerate. If a catheter is involved, the nice new XXXL size will be used.
As usual, the press doesn't explain everything. This same topic comes up every few years even here in Florida, and I don't think that you can entirely blame the cop. I blame MADD and the anti-drunk driving craze from a few years ago.
The law in question says that anyone who is in a car accident that is likely to result in a fatality MUST give a blood sample to test for DUI. Since many drunks refuse to take a sobriety test (especially when being accused of vehicular homicide) the legislature made tests mandatory for accidents involving fatalities or serious injuries likely to be fatalities. Police are authorized to use force to collect the sample that is now part of a homicide investigation, and no warrant is required. Since they do not have the expertise to draw the blood themselves, they enlist the help of nurses and paramedics.
Medical personnel, with their focus being on medical care and not on collecting evidence, frequently refuse to help. Some police and even entire departments take that to mean that the medical person is obstructing an investigation.
In this case, I actually believe the cop who says he was arresting the nurse because he was told to. Likely, when it blew up, the cop's supervisor is throwing the lower ranking officer under the bus.
This law is something that we can blame the legislature for- they pass laws without guidance on how they are to be enforced, and then let the troops on the street take the heat when there are unintended circumstances.
Divemedic,
All he had to do was get an electronic warrant, not even a paper warrant, or place the subject under arrest. He did neither which suggests that he was fishing. The bar is quite low and he was still unable to clear it.
-Gregg
Divemedic:
With all due respect (as a long time lurker and sometimes commenter here, so I say that with no sarcasm):
"Since many drunks refuse to take a sobriety test (especially when being accused of vehicular homicide) the legislature made tests mandatory for accidents involving fatalities or serious injuries likely to be fatalities."
That may be the law in Florida, but I have seen no indication that this is the law in Utah.
"Police are authorized to use force to collect the sample that is now part of a homicide investigation, and no warrant is required."
The Supreme Court ruled last year that blood draws without a warrant are unconstitutional. As in, you can't do that.
That actually wasn't what the court said. The SCOTUS said that a warrantless DUI test is unconstitutional unless there were exigent circumstances. The case was Missouri v. Mcneeley. Here is the money quote:
"We conclude that it does not, and we hold, consistent with general Fourth Amendment principles, that exigency in this context must be determined case by case based on the totality of the circumstances. "
The Florida law says:
"If a law enforcement officer has probable cause to believe that a motor vehicle driven by or in the actual physical control of a person under the influence of alcoholic beverages, any chemical substances, or any controlled substances has caused the death or serious bodily injury of a human being, a law enforcement officer shall require the person driving or in actual physical control of the motor vehicle to submit to a test of the person’s blood for the purpose of determining the alcoholic content thereof or the presence of chemical substances as set forth in s. 877.111 or any substance controlled under chapter 893. The law enforcement officer may use reasonable force if necessary to require such person to submit to the administration of the blood test. The blood test shall be performed in a reasonable manner. Notwithstanding s. 316.1932, the testing required by this paragraph need not be incidental to a lawful arrest of the person."
I don't live in Utah, nor have I ever practiced in Utah, but as far as I know, the MADD group got the states to pass similar laws concerning DUI, thanks to holding states hostage with their Federal highway funding.
On point, unless the law has changed since 2012 (I don't live or practice in Utah, either):
"In Utah, a peace officer may draw a person’s blood without a warrant if the state can show by a totality of the circumstances that both probable cause and exigent circumstances justified the warrantless blood draw."
The way I read that, the officer would have had to have both probable cause (and you can hear him on the body camera saying he doesn't have it) and the "exigent circumstances" justification would have to apply. I don't think "exigent circumstances" would apply here, but I am not a lawyer, do not want to try to interpret "exigent circumstances" doctrine, and don't need to in any case (since the office admitted he was lacking PC, and by my reading both are required).
Neither probable cause nor exigent circumstances entitles ANY law enforcement officer in ANY capacity to compel, under threat of criminal prosecution, the co-operation of ANY third party to perform such blood draw.
If he had probable cause AND exigent circumstances, he had grounds to make an arrest, at which point, under both law and hospital policy, drawing blood from the unconscious patient would have been legal, authorized, and within hospital policy.
Had he merely made the arrest, and assumed all further legal liability for what was, in all probability, neither legal nor exigent, the blood would have been drawn, but instead of putting his own head on the block for that act, the officer (and his sh*t-for-brains watch commander - "just following orders") tried to illegally compel the unwilling participation of a nurse who did no more than tell him he was f*cking up by the numbers.
Any cop who EVER tells me that he's found a loophole in Constitution, and may suddenly make me an indentured servant of his department, contrary to the Thirteenth Amendment, whether in FL, UT, and 48 other states or 7 US territories, will be told in plain English just exactly how far he can shove that noise up his own ass, sidewaysm, with a rusty chainsaw.
Anything he does after that short of piss himself will enable my early retirement on the proceeds of his former job, agency, city, and personal assets, until he's living on skid row in a cardboard box.
Try me on that point.
Hospital staff have NO DUTY WHATSOEVER to work for the police, EVER, under ANY circumstance you can postulate nor imagine.
Officer Fuckstick Jackboots needs to learn that lesson from the unemployment line, after a trip to court in the defendant's chair, and a good stretch in federal prison.
I don't live or practice in either FL or Utah, but in NY and in MI, no professional registered nurse can do ANY invasive procedure (draw blood is one example) without either patient consent, or a warrant from a judge. To do otherwise, the nurse can be arrested and charged with assault. One reason why when you go to get a flu shot, your doctor's office has you sign a consent form. When the doctor wants to do bloodwork on you, because you have talked with him about it, it is considered implied consent. However, someone who is unconscious can't give consent. If they had a designated person of authority, or a health care proxy, the cops could have asked them...but most folks don't have one of those.
This nurse acted in an appropriate manner from what I was able to see on the news, she contacted her supervisor, and was professional in her manner to the detective. He was the one who lost it. Further more, there were 4-5 other cops who seemed to be protecting/helping him as he herded the nurse out the door and arrested her.
He might not want to go to that ER in the future if he needs emergency care. Folks talk about the thin blue line...medical folks tend to feel the same way about their nurses, especially head nurses, especially if they are any good. Competent ER nurses are NOT a dime a dozen.
I heard he was put on paid administrative leave. I hope she hires a lawyer, that the hospital backs her and they go after this guy big time.
In this day and age, we are supposed to be defending people's rights, not mowing over them!! It would have been so easy to either put the patient under arrest, or get a warrant from a judge. Not doing either, and losing his temper on top of it, makes him look like a rather bad character, and certainly not anyone should be on a police force.
The article was poorly written. As far as I can tell, the driver of the car at fault died at the accident, and the victim, the driver of the truck that was struck, who was unconscious, was the one the cop was trying to do the blood draw on. That doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me.
Doesn't seem like it's worth checking the corpse's BAC, what with him having self-administered the highest punishment.
"I actually believe the cop who says he was arresting the nurse because he was told to."
Bullshit. The nurse wasn't doing what the cop told her to do so he lost his temper because she wasn't "respecting his authority". He threw himself under the bus.
I work in similar circumstances sometimes. Unless there is a warrant or a subpoena there is no blood drawn, conscious OR unconscious. Even the probies know that one.
All opinions aside, here is what Utah law says:
10.3.3 PERSONS INCAPABLE OF REFUSAL
Any person who is dead, unconscious, or in any other condition rendering the person incapable of refusal to submit to any chemical test or tests is considered to not have withdrawn the consent provided for in Subsection 41-6a-520(1), and the test or tests may be administered whether the person has been arrested or not. Utah Code Ann. §41-6a-522.
So, Divemedic, which part of 41-6-520(1) do you believe the victim in an accident is covered by?
Just curious...
To save you the time to look up the section, https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title41/Chapter6A/41-6a-S520.html?v=C41-6a-S520_1800010118000101
More info on the cop:
He is a part-time AMBULANCE DRIVER! Supposedly you can hear him on the full length video threatening to only bring indigent patients to that hospital, and take the good ones elsewhere.
I wonder if it is a city/county job, or a private company? I can see him having problems in the future...
BTW, the driver that died was being chased by the police. Ya think they might be looking for some way to minimize the potential impact of this by looking for someone else to hang it on?
News this morning (Saturday) is that the arresting officer has been placed on "administrative leave" by his department. No explanation as to whether it was because of his actions or the resulting news coverage.
Most surely there will be some sort of monetary settlement, as the officer was way wrong in what he did and how he did it. Other officers on scene tried to tell him so at the time. I see private security work in the officer's future.
As to this effecting how any medical personnel might treat police officers in future, if that is their thinking, maybe they need to seek new careers in private security also.
Seems to me that, since the truck driver was not under arrest, as established by the nurse asking that right away, none of the section of the Utah code applies. If the cop had brought in the still alive car driver instead, that would be covered by the section. BTW, this is a different Chris.
Across the board as far as I can see the first step is to research and then ABOLISH ANY POLICE OFFICERS BILL OF RIGHTS LAWS NATIONWIDE. THERE IS NO REASON WHI ANY CIVIL SERVANT SHOULD HAVE ANY EXTRA PROTECTION THAT IS NOT APPLIED TO CITIZENS OF THESE UNITED STATES.
This nonsense is what pushes the 'US vs them' mentality on the PD's across the nation.
Hell if any 'citizen' did 1/4 of the things that police or other .gov employees did we would be stuck in the deepest darkest hole that could be found. It is time to stop all of this nonsense across all .gov employment. Nobody forces them to take these jobs, but,they take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution and the law and should be held to that standard.
When I was a paramedic and paramedic supervisor (not an ambulance driver) in 2010, I ran a call where a woman who ran a stop sign was hit by a pickup truck. There were multiple witnesses, including the woman's mother, who was in a following car. The driver of that pickup could rightly be called the victim, except the woman who ran the stop sign and her 1 year old child were killed in the collision. They drew the pickup driver's blood, and he was found to have a BAC of .084. The legal limit is .08, so he was convicted of two counts of vehicular homicide.
In this case, the cop is a paramedic. There is a video where the nurse is seen telling the cop that not only will she not do the blood draw, but will not allow the cop (who is a paramedic) to do it either.
All of you are missing my point: the case is more complicated than is being published in the press. However, many people who receive their law degrees from the University of Facebook or from Pinterest college want to rush to judgement. If you have a problem with this, the blame lies with the voters and their representatives who pass the laws and make this possible, not with the cops and medical professionals who are tasked with dealing with the law.
Also, administrative leave means nothing. When an allegation is made against a public official like a teacher, cop, or firefighter, the agency is required by law to investigate. They are also prohibited by the constitution from taking action against the cop until there is due process. So, they place them on paid leave until the investigation is complete. It means nothing.
At worst, he will be allowed to resign with full pension. The nurse will sue, and receive an out-of-court settlement paid by the fine citizens of SLC. The cops will be allowed to continue abusing their power.
Any other questions?
Dicemedic, you are missing the critical point. Officer Dumbass could have just followed policy and gotten the warrant. Heck, she probably would have gone along with it if he had made the call and said "OK, it is on the way".
But no, he was the big bad cop who couldn't tolerate being told no - the part of his reaction where he threatened to only deliver indigent patients when working as a Paramedic and take the ones who can pay elsewhere is proof that this was about ego to him and nothing else.
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