Shitty cop in Utah manhandles and arrests nurse for doing her job:
Via Deseret News:
Payne, a veteran Salt Lake police officer, was sent to the hospital by another police agency to get vials of blood for the investigation. But because the patient was not a suspect in the crash nor faced potential criminal charges, because he was unconscious and unable to give consent, and because the officer did not have a warrant, Wubbels [the nurse] — one of the supervisors that night — did not allow him to draw blood.
“If they needed blood, then they needed to go through to proper channels to take it,” she said.
In the body camera video, Wubbels is seen on her phone with numerous supervisors advising them of what was happening and getting confirmation about the policy. Payne sounds impatient in the video and continues to threaten to arrest her.
Wubbels, who is surrounded by other hospital staffers, explains in the video that she is doing what her bosses told her to do. She eventually prints out a copy of the policy for blood draws — one that Salt Lake police agreed to more than a year ago, according to Porter — and shows it to the officer.
Wubbels said close to 10 supervisors were consulted either directly by herself or by the supervisors checking with their own superiors.
But Payne insists he, too, is following orders.
“I’m doing what I’m being told by my boss, and I’m going to do what my boss says,” Payne says sternly at one point in the recording.
Wubbels can be seen trying to tell Payne to calm down while telling her boss on the phone that Payne was threatening to arrest her, and that a University of Utah police officer who was present wasn’t going to stop him.
“She’s going to jail,” Payne says in the video.
“Why?” a hospital staff member asks.
“Interfering with a criminal investigation,” Payne replies.
Turns out the nurse was right and the cops were wrong. A SLC police sergeant admitted in the article that the department’s blood-draw policy “hadn’t been updated for a little bit” before the incident. Officer Payne was wrong to arrest Wubbels, and Payne’s supervisor was wrong to direct him to do so.
But the truly disturbing thing was how Payne went all HULK SMASH on Wubbels, evidently enraged by her polite refusal to immediately obey. He charged at her, tried to bat the phone out of her hand, pinned her arms, cuffed her and wrestled her out of the building. It was completely unnecessary. She wasn’t resisting arrest — she was responding as any normal human would to an assault by a lunatic.
After the nurse is handcuffed and strapped into the seat of Payne’s cruiser, the other cop delivers an incredibly condescending lecture to Wubbels, of the “why were you wearing such a short skirt” variety. A longer video clip captures that part of Wubbels’ ordeal.
According to the Deseret, Payne is off the blood-draw squad but is still on active duty. The department is receiving training on blood-draw regulations so they’ll stop asking medical professionals to violate the law.
That’s not good enough. Payne should be fired since he clearly doesn’t have the temperament to handle his job, and the department should receive anger management training to weed out other Paynes.
The whole thing is outrageous but unsurprising. After viewing news reports about justifiable public anger and largely peaceful demonstrations to protest the killing of unarmed black men and children, 64 million assholes voted in a “law-and-order” mega-asshole, in part as a big FUCK YOU to anyone who objects to extrajudicial executions by police.
And mega-asshole is delivering, “joking” to an audience of cops just the other day about roughing up people they’ve placed under arrest. I suspect Officer Payne heard him loud and clear.
Trentrunner
There’s such a thing as a “blood-draw squad”?
TIL…
polyorchnid octopunch
Land of the free.
wuzzat
I’m guessing the SLC nurses aren’t unionized? If the cops pulled that stunt in my town, the state nurses union would own that precinct by Monday. At minimum, Officer Dumbfuck would be seeing assault charges, and assuming he was packing, a decent argument could be made for attempted armed robbery. Taking evidence without a warrant is called stealing by normal folks.
Roger Moore
The thing that pisses me off the most is that the whole thing was based on a foundation of bullshit from the very beginning. The guy whose blood they wanted to test was an innocent victim who had been hit by the suspect the police were chasing. There was no good reason to think he had drugs in his system, and it’s hard to imagine any halfway competent DA thinking about charging him based on the evidence they had. But the police still claimed they needed to do a blood draw to eliminate suspicion he might have been using drugs. That’s transparent bullshit. If there was no probable cause to believe he had drugs in his system to start with, there’s no suspicion to dispel. The only reason for testing him is to create suspicion where none had existed before.
Another Scott
I guess the real lesson from this is that we all need to buy Google Glass (or the equivalent) or a Russian DashCam (maybe mounted on a hat) and record every interaction with the police (and probably everyone else out there). Rules and Norms aren’t enough any more, because too many in law enforcement don’t know or understand what the rules and norms actually are.
Grrr.
Here’s hoping she finds a good lawyer and makes the department hurt a little so that they change their attitudes and policies.
Cheers,
Scott.
germy
Is this obsession with drawing blood part of the Wonderful War on Drugz™ ?
We’re still living in Nixonland.
EDIT: Okay, my question was answered above. I didn’t see it when I posted my comment.
bemused
This was jaw-dropping.
I hated the condescending tone of other officer too. Also CYA. How about the police dept get current on the protocol and educating the officers.
Matt
Payne should be in jail, and every motherfucker who trained him should be cleaning out their desks and figuring out what to do about their seized pensions.
At this point, I suspect the most efficient way to clean up American policing would be to call an all-hands at most local stations & then padlock all the doors, thus capturing a whole bushel of crooks in one swoop.
beth
That fucking cop – he says “your policy is interfering with my law”. It’s not your law you asshole, it’s THE law and maybe you should try following it.
Brachiator
Damn. Outrageous. Ridiculous.
Cops expect to be obeyed. And too many of them act up when defied or challenge. Doesn’t matter whether they are right or wrong or even whether they know the laws they are supposedly enforcing.
But this is exactly the type of officer that police departments want. And many citizens, especially conservatives, are fine with this, as long as it doesn’t happen to them.
The cop should give a public apology to the nurse. And then his authoritarian ass should be fired. Fire his fucking supervisor, too.
Trentrunner
Also, again, always: fck the fcking autoplay audio/video ads at BJ.
Peale
O.K. so if he wasn’t a suspect, why are they drawing his blood? I don’t quite understand@Roger Moore: Ah. Now it makes sense. I was wondering why they needed his blood to begin with. So that if the family of the truck driver sued the police for the accident (for a chase which also may not have been necessary), they could claim that he had drugs in his system. Got it. There wasn’t “an investigation” of a crime at all.
The Moar You Know
@Trentrunner: There is. Here in CA the practice is legal. And the hospital staff is more than happy to help with DUI drivers who hurt somebody, as was the case the last time I went to the ER, girl next to me had smashed up her car and passenger and the cops tried to get her permission and then, when that wasn’t forthcoming, took it anyway. Then they waited until she was discharged and arrested her for felony DUI out in the lobby.
Utah is far more progressive on this particular issue than CA. My mind was blown.
What I found really disturbing was the hospital staff, far from even wanting to make sure the right thing was, done, basically stood there and asked if they could help. Fucked up.
That Payne sack of shit needs to lose his badge. He can come work in San Diego, we love us our cowboy cops out here.
BC in Illinois
@bemused:
Yes. He pushes the line that, even if what the police are demanding is against the patient’s rights, then “There are civil remedies.”
That’s right, jerk. Like, she and the hospital can sue the pants off of you.
tinare
I hope she sues the pants off the department and that Payne asshole. He ABSOLUTELY should be fired.
The Moar You Know
Also, should go without saying, Nurse needs to sue the shit out of the department.
cervantes
Yes, Wubbles definitely has a cause of action.
bemused
@BC in Illinois:
As beth said, the “my law” comment really grates. I felt he was intimidating to blur the other arresting cop’s stupid decision.
The nurse was respectful and professional. I can’t imagine what it felt like to be suddenly treated like that.
Cermet
@Brachiator: Conservatives only fine with this type of cop when it does not happen to them – that is, people with money; then the cops are careful and respectful because then, there are consequences and the cops know it. There are only two types of people Nig$rs and people with money. No matter how much white a$$hole middle class amerika thinks they are special that cops would never treat poorly or even bother, as this shows, they too are just Nig$rs waiting to be delt with when it suits the cops.
James Powell
For some reason, police departments don’t consider “temperament to handle the job” to be an important qualification.
Ohio Mom
Something that struck me is how passive the rest of the hospital staff is. Couldn’t one of those fellows in the white shirts (I think they are some kind of administrators) say an encouraging word to the nurse: “Don’t worry, we will meet you at the police station, we have your back”?
And the security guard is useless.
Part of the nurse’s panic has to be based on the realization that nobody is sticking up for her. It’s not just her who is saying no — there is the voice on the phone, for one — but she is allowed to be singled out and essentially sacrificed.
I’m not judging, just observing. Most of us can’t help but be subservient in front of a cop. At least we have worked our way up to freely filming them.
trollhattan
Really, really hoping both the nurse and the intended drawee are both Mormons in good standing. That will bolster their outcomes in SLC and beyond, in case this goes outside the city itself. Sheesh.
Amir Khalid
Why was Detective Payne sent to get the victim’s blood, in the first place? Was there reason to suspect he might have been on something? Or is this a routine part of such investigations?
MattF
What?? You can “arrest’ someone without humiliating and then beating them up???
bemused
I think the supervisor on the phone with the nurse had just said to officer that he was making a big mistake and then the officer went off his head. I should watch that part of the video again.
Roger Moore
@Amir Khalid:
It isn’t, or shouldn’t be, a routine part of investigations to do that. What’s really happening here is that the police were worried they might look bad because of the accident, so they were looking for a way of blaming the victim so they wouldn’t be blamed themselves. They had no legal grounds for doing what they were trying to do, but they wanted to do it anyway. All the police involved in the incident should suffer at least some official sanction.
Mark B
An interesting bit of trivia is that the nurse is a two-time Olympian. Perhaps the cops were used to using intimidation to illegally obtain evidence and her experience gave her the confidence to stand up for the rights of the patient. In any case, whatever gave her the courage to stand up against this abuse of power, I applaud her for doing her job, and I hope the police involved get fired and the department pays a huge monetary settlement and gets put under court supervision to make sure they don’t do this kind of abuse again.
chopper
what a prick, dumbass cop. had she allowed him to stick the guy, the nurse would have lost her job and exposed the hospital to a lawsuit for violating the patient’s rights as well as federal and state law. and given that there’s video (and also a bunch of hospital staff as witnesses) of the cop state repeatedly that he didn’t have a fucking warrant, the evidence would be thrown out anyway.
she should sue.
MJS
They act like Nazis, but then get their precious feelings hurt when you call them Nazis.
chopper
oh, so now they’re gonna get training in consent and probable cause. that’s just awesome.
Ohio Mom
@bemused: I wonder if a male supervisor had come down to the ER, what would have happened.
I wonder what effect a man in a suit or an attending physician in his white coat would have had. Because I think the cop might have been at least partially enraged because a mere girl was standing up to him.
Arclite
“At least he didn’t shoot her”
That was because she wasn’t black. This fucker needs to be fired. Won’t happen though. But if police departments had any standards or backbone, he would.
Amir Khalid
@Roger Moore:
Thanks. That might also explain why Payne showed up at the hospital without a warrant. As I recall from watching all those American cop shows, it takes a judge to issue a warrant; and absent a reason to investigate the victim, a request for a warrant wouldn’t have made sense to a judge.
Roger Moore
@chopper:
The goal was never to generate admissible evidence. The goal was to smear the victim as responsible for the accident to avoid bad PR for the accident and possibly to use against him in a civil suit.
Walker
Apparently Payne has a second job as an ambulance driver. There is body cam footage of him saying that he will retaliate against the hospital by only giving them transients and taking good patients elsewhere.
Roger Moore
@Amir Khalid:
I think the whole thing should be filed as an exhibit in the old “if the police want us to follow the law, they should set a better example” file.
NCSteve
If we follow this very long, I am certain we will find the department reinstated him because everything he did was “in line with departmental policy and procedures.” And time and again, this shit happens and the cops say “hey, s’all good. Filling that kid full of lead for looking like he might be the kind of person who could have a gun was consistent with departmental policies and procedures” and there it ends. Because no one, on either side, wants to face up to the reality that the policies and procedures are the problem, that this is an institutional problem, not a “who’s the Bad Guy?” problem. Everyone is too invested in treating this as a morality and character play to acknowledge where the heart of the problem is and fix it.
The heart of the problem is a mentality that has been enshrined in policy and procedure that the primary job of a cop is to minimize danger to the cop, that the existence of the slightest possible risk to the cop justifies the use of any degree force, up to deadly force. It has created a worldview where cops believe they are entitled to, and should receive instant, grovelling, servile “compliance” (forms of the word “comply” are pervasive in their public speech, their training and their manuals) and a mentality that they are the occupation forces of a regime unconstrained by the rule of law imposing order on subjects, rather than the guardians of citizens of a free country. It’s why they insist it’s possible for people pumped full of the same fight or flight hormones that make them fly out of control to meekly comply with their demands no matter what they say or do.
But lest I be accused of bothsiderism, the people who are really to blame here are the kind of people who show up every time some brown person is beaten or killed or violently arrested for nothing to spin victim-blaming tales of what they Just Know Must Have Happened in the minutes before the camera was turned on that totally justify the unreasonable, awful thing we see on the video out of nothing but thin air and their own latent authoritarianism. The people who can’t grasp that once you let the cops step outside the boundaries defined by the law to put a beat down on Those People, there is no stopping place and they aren’t going to draw lines of their own that keep them from putting a beat down on you.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Ohio Mom: I have no doubt that the “female” aspect was part of it. Never mind that as an elite (Olympic!) athlete she could have kicked his ass. OT: I hope you can join us next Saturday. I’ll be the one with the green balloons by my chair…
@Roger Moore: Perzactly, and I doubt a warrant for a draw could have been gotten under those circumstances. Which probably helped him decide intimidation up to and including assaultive arrest was the way to go. Plus he’s an asshole to start with.
Amir Khalid
@Walker:
So the detective is not only a bully but a snob. Hmm.
Barbara
@The Moar You Know: I wasn’t there, so I don’t know exactly what happened, but if the girl was conscious and in a position to resist and did not, she gave consent, as troubling as that might seem. It also sounds like probable cause existed to take evidence from her. And if it didn’t and it can be argued that she did not consent, then she has a chance of getting the blood draw excluded from evidence. In the Utah case, there was no probable cause — they are admitting it right in the video — so the blood draw was transparently illegal and the police were essentially trying to force the hospital to conspire with them to violate the patient’s civil rights. This would be an assault by both the police and the hospital employees. My guess is that they were going to try to fancy foot at the back end if in fact they found illegal substances in his blood. The notion that the police can show up and take blood from whoever they want to and let courts sort it out at the back end is the very epitome of a police state.
Tokyokie
@trollhattan: One thing you learn from living in Utah is that the temple garments that all good Mormons are required to wear at all times leave a distinctive underwear line. Thus, one can tell at a glance whether a person is a Mormon or not, without having to ask. The nurse is definitely NOT wearing temple garments and is not likely to be a Mormon. I can’t see the cop’s clothing so I can’t say, but I’d be surprised if he were an adherent of any other faith. So you almost certainly have a situation in which an LDS cop is being obstructed by a non-LDS civilian, and the LDS cop knows the nurse is a damn “Gentile” and feels no need to be respectful of her. I used to live there, and I suffered similar, although not as severe, situations in encounters with the local police.
MomSense
‘Your policy interfering with my law’
Fuck you, officer asshole.
bemused
@Ohio Mom:
Doubt it. I think officer would have reacted the same. I’d like to know what was up with the guy or if he is always this authoritarian. Uncalled for and stupid to say the least. The supervisor on the phone which nurse held so officer could hear was a male voice. Also supervisor told officer he was making a huge mistake.
Barbara
@Roger Moore: But why? It seems so fishy — as if the police know this driver and suspect him generally and saw this as an opportunity to get him, but there is nothing to that effect in any article I have read.
Gelfling 545
@MattF: Possibly but where’s the fun in that? Thinking of my late ex husband here.
bemused
I may have missed something but did officer call his superior at all, what to do next when he couldn’t get blood sample, before he manhandled the nurse?
Ohio Mom
@Walker: Now the ambulance company has cause to fire him, or at least warn him/put him on probation.
There has to be a protocol about where to take patients — probably high on the list is where the closest hospital is — and he just announced he isn’t going to follow it.
Amir Khalid
@Barbara:
One might speculate that the driver who hit his lorry was a big wheel of some sort, or close kin thereof, in the Church of LDS and/or Salt Lake City.
GregB
Can I just say. Fuck Chris Kobach.
Despicable.
geg6
@Peale:
Yep. That’s exactly how I read it.
Mark B
@GregB: He’s so blatantly a scumbag, it’s amazing that he ever got elected to anything. It’s like a lot of the voters approve of scumbaggery.
Alain the site fixer
@Trentrunner: I’m adjusting a few things today, will see what options I have. I don’t think there are any but lemme see.
Ohio Mom
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho: It’s on my calendar. I’ll be the short one with white hair. Ohio Dad will probably come too.
Villago Delenda Est
The Full-Arpaio era of US law enforcement has begun, thanks to the shitgibbon-in-chief.
Frankensteinbeck
@Mark B:
Conservatism is a philosophy of hate. Why wouldn’t they approve of scumbags? The people we think are the worst, they think are the best.
Villago Delenda Est
@MomSense: Actually, given how the policy is derived from law, the officer in question was shitting on his own profession with his reaction.
Which is typical nowadays.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Amir Khalid: Shocking, isn’t it?
@Villago Delenda Est: Yup. Cheered on in fact, by Kim Jong-Orange. This regime year seems like it’s been 10 years instead of not quite 8 months.
Brachiator
@Tokyokie:
Is Utah a theocracy independent of the United States?
zhena gogolia
this is making me cry
Amir Khalid
@Mark B:
That shouldn’t be any big surprise in a country where Donald Trump — ptui! — got elected President.
Arclite
@Trentrunner: Huh, didn’t autoplay for me.
The Moar You Know
@Brachiator: That was the original goal. That they are not is not for a lack of trying.
Isobel
The especially stupid thing is that without the patient’s hospital records, the police can’t correlate if any narcotics have lawfully been given to this burn victim. Also, with third degree burns and unconscious there’s a good chance that the patient is intubated, which means he will have benzodiazepines in addition to narcotics in his system by the time this officer is drawing blood. There is no reason unless they can compel medical records to even take this sample except to smear or threaten the victim.
As a nurse, this doesn’t surprise me but it does piss me off so very much.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
I’ve revealed before here that I spent 13 years as a civilian in law enforcement as an evidence technician/CSI. I heard (very occasionally) an officer talk about manufacturing a reason to pull someone over, specifically mentioning that it was a young black male in a new Mercedes Benz (which wasn’t common in that area).
I’ve heard them occasionally talk about standing up for “my brother cop” no matter what. I remember a couple of them saying that sometimes a woman was just asking to be slapped around. A lieutenant wrote occasional articles about how police officers were outside standard society and felt ostracized by society (in other words, saw themselves as victims).
I don’t know how to change the dynamic. It seems to me to be similar to the White folks who believe they’re under assault, their values and culture being eroded. If you can eradicate such ignorance, you will do so slowwwwwwwly.
Arclite
@The Moar You Know:
Doesn’t that violate HIPAA laws?
Dupe70
@Roger Moore: 10 to 1 they were trying to immunize the city and police from a lawsuit because it happened during a high speed chase. They are digging up dirt on this guy as we speak.
sukabi
@Roger Moore: fishing expedition, they wanted to pin something on him.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Barbara: The police chase preceded the accident in which the patient was the victim. So the municipality could easily have some civil liability for those injuries. Hence the need to attribute “fault” to that driver if possible. Slimy, to say the least.
Brachiator
@Cermet:
It’s not really about money. Race and social class are the larger factors.
Kathleen
@Ohio Mom: Awesome. If either of you sees CarolDuart2 in comments would you ask her to contact Adam for my email address? She said she needed a ride and I would be glad to pick her up and take her home, For some reason O think she lives in the city proper like I do, Thx
Kathleen
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho: Ms Fax please see my coment for Ohio Mom #70. Tjx
Kay
I think field offices is money well spent:
Republicans really have had a string of losses on voting restrictions in federal court. It’s like some tipping point was reached and there’s no longer an assumption they’re acting in good faith.
Brachiator
@Dupe70:
If this is true, you got more than just an authoritarian cop, perhaps a criminal conspiracy by a chunk of the police department. I didn’t realize at first that they were trying to get blood from the victim. This is absurd.
J R in WV
While a blood draw taken without permission is bad enough, there was a case not that long ago in New Mexico where two Deputies took a guy into custody after the got a dog to sniff at his ass. These two clown proceeded to take the guy into another county, after the mecidal facility in the county they worked for declined to undertake to empty the suspect’s colon.
But they found a compliant (there’s that root word again) in Silver City, NM, that first performed forced enemas in public of this poor guy, and after two enemas didn’t provide any concealed evidence, the medical staff proceeded to force the guy to undergo a colonoscopy, searching for evidence that this random traffic stop person had concealed contraband in his anus, that wasn’t discovered by public anal exam, followed by public enemas.
Needless to say, nothing was found in the course of the illegal colonoscopy either. Their warrant, obtained on the evidence of a dog sniffing his butt, was NOT valid in this other county, and expired before they arrived at the Silver City facility. The tortured individual made a good living with his puckup truck, recycling scrap metal. But was obviously not perceived to be part of the high class, law-abiding part of the community these guys were sworn to “Protect and Serve”.
Fortunately, after an ABQ TV station found out the sordid details of this extended anal rape, and aired the story, a lawyer stepped up and obtained a 7 digit award. I hope the victim used some of his hard-earned settlement to move somewhere where the cops act more like human beings.
There are worse things out there that cops evidently do routinely than just arrest people for doing their jobs.
ETA: These two cop-clowns were fired IIRC. This was a couple of years ago, but I’m sure Google will find details should you be interested. Hope the victim is doing well somewhere else. ETA2: Hidalgo County, far south edge of NM, again IIRC…
Ruckus
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho:
That’s because it’s been going on a lot longer than 10 yrs. There have always been cops like this. We didn’t hear about them all that much, because of lack of recording ability. But they have been with us forever. What has changed is that it seems these are a far higher percentage of cops these days but I’d bet even that has to do with recording, if not their every move, a lot of them. I had a HS buddy who became a deputy and I did a ride along with him. Watched him do an illegal search and arrest and asked him about it later. “I got his dope (the remains of a dobbie, about 1/8 in long), he’s in my jail for 3 days (a Friday night) and the DA will not file charges so he’ll be out on Monday.” I was stunned. Last time I saw my buddy. That was over 45 yrs ago. This shit is not new. I have other stories about a different dept, the LAPD. You may have heard about Newton station? My business was in their area.
Villago Delenda Est
@J R in WV:
Or professional law enforcement officers, which this country is in dire need of. They seem to exist mostly on television.
Dupe70
@Brachiator: Yup. The perpetrator is/was dead. They had zero probable cause to even question the victim of a horrible crime/accident. But the PD were engaging in high speed chase which opens them up to liability. So everyone went full CYA.
JGabriel
Deseret News via Anne Laurie @ Top:
Jeepers. I hope Nurse Wubbels sues the living hell out of the SLC PD, and Officer Payne personally, for assault, battery, and wrongful arrest, with triple damages.
Jay S
@Arclite:
There are a number of law enforcement exceptions in HIPAA.
Ruckus
@JGabriel:
A big part of the problem is that a lot of the officers that worked in the field and were/are assholes got promoted and are running police departments now. They hire people who are more like them and don’t change the basic premise of “good” police work because this is who they are, even if the town/county/state that hired them doesn’t know. And I’d be that at least some of those towns/counties/states do know exactly who they hired.
Cacti
Sounds to me like he was just following Trump’s guidance to manhandle “suspects”.
Elie
@JGabriel:
…and possibly the hospital for not having an administrator on the horn immediately to the police department warning them that they will not allow them to push their staff around ! I can’t believe the nursing administrator wasn’t on the scene and in his face!
debbie
Pig. Apologize already.
BretH
Let me get this straight. The cop was suspended from the “blood draw program” which means they had at least a team and supervisors directly responsible for getting blood samples from places like hospitals. But ‘the department’s blood-draw policy “hadn’t been updated for a little bit” when the incident occurred.’ Gross, gross negligence from the start.
I’d say a generous $$$ settlement with a minimum of requirements to
1) Have the officer and supervisor directly apologize to the nurse.
2) Either fire the officer and supervisor or have them provide proof of x hours of training including anger management.
3) Proof of complete review of the department’s policies around blood drawing.
JDM
@Ohio Mom:
That’s how terrorism works. And it often works pretty well. Each and every one of those people was worried not only about the cops there going ballistic, but the aftermath: weeks or months of stalking, intimidation, arrests for little or nothing. We’ve all heard about those kinds of actions; so has everyone in that hospital.
Steve in the ATL
@Brachiator:
de facto, though not de jure
trollhattan
@JDM:
Hospital staffs are also generally unarmed, which makes this an asymmetrical situation to say the least. Obvious solution is to arm the hospital to the gills. (It was a Salt Lake City suburban teacher who shot herself with a concealed gun while going to the can.)
Roger Moore
@Barbara:
The crash happened during a police pursuit, which potentially left the police open to criticism or even charges if the pursuit was unjustified or carried out badly. If they could prove the victim had been using drugs, it would be a lot easier to blame him for the accident rather than an out-of-control police chase.
Barbara
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho: That is the likely explanation.
opiejeanne
@Ruckus: I don’t know about Newton. I didn’t find stories about the cops behaving badly, mostly just stuff about gang shootings.
Seth Owen
@bemused: Yes, his supervisor backed him up, as they almost invariably do.
Seth Owen
@Arclite: But this was not a suspected DUI driver. He was the victim. I doubt this is legal in CA, either, as the US Supreme Court ruled it’s not legal.
Ohio Mom
@Kathleen: Will do. I don’t read every thread but we have a whole week and that is a lot of threads.
Ohio Mom
@Jay S: Yes, if you read the HIPPA fine print, it can start to feel as if everyone except your closest kin can access your records without your permission. It is somewhat shocking, at least it was to me.
Ruckus
@opiejeanne:
Newton was the station that got the LAPD under the eye of the justice dept. Yes there were gangs in that area. But the Bloods and the Crips were not the only gangs, some of them wore blue. The LAPD has a gang unit, as does most big city police depts. 30-50 yrs ago the LAPD gang units would ride 6 cops to an “unmarked” car, all of them 6 ft plus body builder types. They would drive down the street and stop any one they suspected of being in a gang. Of course that person would be a young male of color. And they would discuss his life and most likely beat the shit out of him. With night sticks. Judge, jury and punishment, all in one place and all of one mind. Other divisions may have done the same, Newton was where I was. This was not, as best as I understand, the worst of the abuse. In the station, out of sight was supposed to be worse.
If you read the LAPD website, it’s all glossed over and was love, peace and flowers. That’s also what’s known as bullshit. The Times was not very good on the subject either.
And the LA sheriff’s dept had/has the SEB or special enforcement bureau. Little plastic plaque in the back window said SEB on it. Inside were 2 deputies, whose job was as stated special enforcement. Those deputies took absolutely no shit from anyone and made sure that you understood that, with whatever force was deemed they could get away with. Which was a lot.
I can not imagine that other large cities/counties didn’t do the same.
The type of crap described in the original post is nothing new. Only the recording of the abuse is relatively new.
TriassicSands
@James Powell:
Like the 64 million Americans who voted for Trump — and the millions who continue to support him.
Payne was just behaving the way his president wants him to behave.
Ruckus
@Kay:
Isn’t that the way it always works? One judge strikes down an issue and as more and more cases hit the courts, more and more judges follow the thinking in the first, until the concept is codified and becomes, there’s a word for it but not being a lawyer or remembering my Latin from HS……..
That is the power of the courts. And how often is the USSC willing to strike down wide ranging judicial review?
celticdragonchick
@Dupe70:
They may have trouble with that since the victim is a reserve police officer in Idaho according to numerous outlets.
TriassicSands
@Ohio Mom:
I’m guessing the more salient consideration in this case is the temperament of the cop. Police manhandle and abuse men all the time. I don’t really know that having a woman refuse to blindly obey him would have been any worse than a man refusing. Cops expect absolute obedience regardless of whom they are dealing with. This guy, Payne, is a thug. I doubt he would have behaved any better with a man.
TriassicSands
Let’s see, the police don’t suspect a crime, but if they draw the person’s blood they might discover grounds for arresting him/her for a crime. That sounds like the patient in question needs to be protected before the fact as the nurse was doing and the hospital-police agreement stipulated.
TenguPhule
@Ruckus:
Precedent. I believe that’s the word you’re looking for.
TriassicSands
@NCSteve:
I would expect reinstatement, unless there is a widespread public outcry, but not under the justification you suggest. He clearly was not acting in accordance with departmental policy and procedures. The nurse showed him the agreed upon procedure and he proceeded to violate it.
If they even feel they need to provide justification for reinstatement, it will probably be something explaining he’s a long-time veteran police officer with a good record who has now undergone a 30-second [sic] anger management class and been re-instructed on relevant department procedures.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Arclite:
No, as part of receiving a license to drive in the State of California, you agree to that.
TriassicSands
@Trentrunner:
I keep getting a really loud and obnoxious Toyota ad. I can’t find the ad anyplace on the visible site. Is that what you are referring to? If so, is it visible somewhere and I’ve just missed it or is this a “stealth” ad that is all audio?
JEC
@NCSteve: I think you’ve hit on the main point of this story.
It seems that most law enforcement officers are trained in the principle, “Don’t negotiate; dominate.” The crucial importance of “controlling the situation” is drilled into them. And that’s grounded, in turn, on a — probably mistaken — theory of officer safety, namely that an officer’s safety depends upon their perceived authority, and that their authority is dangerously compromised by engaging in a back-and-forth negotiation with a citizen. Prompt escalation to shock-and-awe is the go-to strategy.
Of course, even if the theory has some validity in some situations, it’s clearly wildly inapplicable to a completely non-threatening situation like a hospital. (Was the officer afraid of a nurses’ riot?)
Another complicating factor is that “the street” is not a courtroom, and our legal system is largely premised on the idea that any (or at least most) wrongs done “in the field” can be rectified at a later date in court. For better or worse, this means that refusing a police order — even an unlawful one — basically escalates the situation to civil disobedience. (Which may be entirely appropriate, depending on the circumstances.)
Finally, the incident calls attention to the need, at all kinds of institutions and facilities, for a clear policy and procedure on how to handle police orders that are believed to be unlawful. For example, an attorney from a hospital’s General Counsel’s office should be on call 24 hours a day to provide guidance and direction in situations like this; nurses and their front-line supervisors shouldn’t be put in the position of having to argue the law with a police officer in the middle of the ER. Things might have gone differently if the desk nurse had been able to say, “Sure, happy to help with that. Just give me a second to double check with our lawyer that I’m allowed to do that. Shouldn’t be more than a minute.” Impossible to say if this would have “solved” the problem, but it surely would have played out differently.
TenguPhule
@JEC:
I see the flaw in that line of reasoning.
TriassicSands
@Cacti:
Nurse Wubbels should include Trump in her lawsuit.
Honus
@The Moar You Know: I’m not sure it’s legal in california or anywhere else for the police to draw blood from somebody at any time without a warrant, arrest, or probable cause. As you say, hospitals a re cooperative with DUI case, but those people are under suspicion or under arrest and/or can consent. In a lot of states, failure to consent to a breathalyzer is considered a prima facie case of intoxication, and effectively an automatic conviction.
But in this case, the officers admitted they couldn’t get a warrant because they “had no PC” They weren’t arresting the patient, he was not even under suspicion of a crime so I don’t know what justification, in Utah or anywhere else, police would have for conducting an intrusive search.
Honus
@Walker: Then he should be summarily fired from that job, too. Sounds like he’s pretty unfit for anything but stoop labor.
Knight of Nothing
My own thoughts on this matter: http://knightofnothing.blogspot.com/2017/09/hero-nurse-defends-constitutional.html.
TL; DR: nurses > cops.
Ruckus
@Honus:
I was involved in an auto “accident” in CA one night. I was rammed going 70 on the freeway by a drunk that witnesses said was easily going over 100. My car was not totaled but one wheel was hanging on by only half the suspension. Witnesses followed the guy till he got out to pee and the cops got there very quickly. They took him into custody as the evidence was overwhelming. He refused testing without his lawyer present, which is his right. It was xmas, it was Friday, his lawyer of course was not available. Which meant that he could not be tested till Monday. He stayed in custody but it was pointless to test him then. Yes you agreed to be tested by applying for a DL in CA. But you don’t give up your right to an attorney by doing so. This guy was a drunk, he’d been involved in other incidents involving driving and drinking. He had a “good” attorney. OK a well paid attorney. When he went to court the judge made him pay full restitution, which for me was about $900 over and above what my insurance company paid to fix my car. A hotel room xmas night, over 30 days rental of a car, trips from northern CA to southern CA to return the car and pick up mine, etc. The assistant DA informed me of this and the scums lawyer called me to try and get me to settle the amount for less. I told him that I was going to make two calls right after I hung up with him, which was right after I asked him to spell out his name for me. First was the DA, so she could inform the judge. The second was to file a complaint with the state bar. His next words were “You will have a check in the morning.” and I did. But the worst part is that I’d bet his asshole client is still driving around drunk, unless he’s killed himself.
O. Felix Culpa
@Ruckus:
Or more likely, killed some other poor schlub(s) who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when this guy was drunk driving for the umpteenth time.
ETA: As others have said, the cop’s behavior was beyond appalling; the nurse did the right and courageous thing; and her colleagues were at best weak in their immediate response to her arrest.
Knight of Nothing
@O. Felix Culpa: I think her colleagues should have done more, but honestly, I’m not going to blame them — they are trying to de-escalate, they don’t want to get arrested, and they all are supposed to be on the same side in this situation! It must have been extremely confusing and stressful for all of the hospital staff.
IMO, the cop’s partner should have have done more: “take five, man — you’ve lost the fucking mission.”
gratuitous
A couple of things I notice from the tape: First, the cop goes after the nurse, a woman, in spite of the fact that there are two male administrators standing right there. Second, the cop goes from “So you’re telling me . . .” to “We’re done!” and its Gestapo time in a matter of seconds.
The City is going to write this nurse a very large check.
Alex
@tinare: Unfortunately it’s really hard to overcome sovereign immunity even in cases like these involving a clearly established right.
bemused senior
@The Moar You Know: “California’s “implied consent” law requires all drivers lawfully arrested for a DUI to submit to chemical testing to determine blood alcohol concentration (BAC) or the amount of drugs in the person’s system. For an arrest to be lawful, the officer who stops you must have probable cause to believe you’ve been driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. California law generally allows the driver to choose between a blood or breath test. But if neither a blood or breath test is available, the driver must take a urine test. (People who have hemophilia or are taking anticoagulants for a heart condition can’t be required to take a blood test, but must, instead, submit to urine testing.)
An arresting officer is required by law to explain the consequences of refusing a test—that you’ll be fined, lose your license, and face jail time if convicted of a DUI. The officer must also explain you don’t have the right to speak to an attorney prior to taking the test and that a test refusal can be used against you in court. Citation
coin operated
@bemused senior: Oregon has the same law.
Regarding the cop…man shouldn’t have a job after this. And, I hope the ambulance company (and maybe half the ambulance chasers in the state) were paying attention to the video. Tell me this man isn’t ripe for a lawsuit next time he drives an ambulance.
O. Felix Culpa
@Knight of Nothing: Good point. The other cop(s) present were complicit in this abuse of power.
sigyn
@Ohio Mom: Did we watch the same vid? This is what makes the shocking unreliability of eyewitness testimony so fascinating; I’m not attacking you, but I wish you would re-watch that with what I saw in mind.
What I saw: The guys in the white polos were not admin, admin was on the phone & on the way. These guys were probably co-equal, consulting but not ordering her around.
They had her back so hard that one guy had his hand literally on her shoulder until he was ordered away by the arresting officer, who perceived them as such a problem that he threatened them all with arrest.
(I’d like to take this opportunity to defend the smaller-built cop(?) who hooks around to your left. I see someone trying desperately to de-escalate this situation).
If by security guard you mean the heavy-set guy by the door? Yeah, you’re right there.
J R in WV
Well, I’ve been lucky when I have had interaction with cops they have been uniformly helpful, polite and courteous. I am a well spoken older guy driving cars in good shape, for the $0.02 that seems t be worth.
These shows of outrageous misfeasance by so many cops just tells me the odds will eventually change, someday.
So scary, to have armed nutcases running around going off on people trying to be helpful.