We’re going to hear the usual excuses that a police officer’s job is hard. Looks like it’s getting harder in this country to avoid maniacal, malevolent and even criminally inclined police officers.
What scares me just as much as the roughhouse arrest of a clearly innocent person is the fact that several other officers stood by and did nothing. In fact, the officers who did appear to approach Detective Payne did so with kid gloves, in the face of obvious illegal and oppressive conduct, while the poor female nurse was screaming in pain.
The investigation into this incident needs to go above and beyond routine because the stated rationale for Detective Payne wanting to draw blood is dubious. There is speculation that because the precipitating incident was a police chase and crash, the cops may have wanted a blood sample to cover their arse, even though the injured [comatose] civilian driver (the crash victim) was not their target.
What I don’t understand is the implication that a cop can ever order anyone to do anything, such as draw blood. If he wants the blood, go ahead and draw it himself, but nobody is his servant, whether it is legal to take blood without consent or not.
I saw that yesterday she was calm, professional and prepared with information. Any sane person with authority would have at a minimum stepped back and contacted his superiors for guidance if he felt it was imperative to get that blood sample immediately.
He was incompetent in his job and abusive in his actions
@LakeWashington, I’ve been mulling over whether the behavior is getting worse, or it is just that cameras (security & cell phone) are more ubiquitous, so it is harder to get away with bad behavior that has always gone on. This particular incident is appalling to me, for sure.
I thought this was offensive and an abuse of police power - there were 3 options for obtaining the man’s blood. One - he could have consented, but he was unconscious. Two - he was under arrest, but he wasn’t because he was apparently the victim of the car fleeing the cops. Three - a court order was obtained. None of those conditions existed here, although the officer could certainly have requested that a court order be promptly obtained. All I can say is that I would be thrilled if i walked into a hospital and saw that this nurse (who, by the way, is an Olympic skier) was assigned to care for me. She clearly knows and understands about patient rights.
I hope the officer is severely disciplined. Whether he loses is job is, to me, a function of his overall career grid. If this was his first offense, give him some retraining and put him back on probation. If it’s part of an overall pattern that has persisted, fire him. If it’s somewhere in the middle, consider sending him back to the academy for some overall retraining and maybe demoting him and putting him on probation.
If that nurse had drawn the man’s blood without consent, and without some exception or exemption generally accepted in the eyes of the law or the standard of care, would she not have been committing a battery on the patient?
So she was supposed to choose between violating her own medical ethics, battery, or getting arrested? That was a terrible position for an LEO to place her in.
As the mother of a future nurse, I can tell you I would bring everything I could to bear upon this officer and his department (and I’m generally a law and order kind of person).
There would be hell to pay. Utter and completely overwhelming hell.
Yeah, this was really bad. The officer was put on paid leave. I’ve never understood that. At the least, put him on leave and then give him back pay IF he is shown to have been in the right.
I hope the nurse gets a large financial settlement.
As of yesterday, the officer was still on duty as a detective (though he was removed from the blood collection team). I know nothing about the SLC community, but I’m surprised that there hasn’t been more outrage directed at the police department’s handling of this officer’s conduct.
Also, unrelated but interesting: the nurse was a member of the 1998 and 2002 US Olympic Alpine ski team per the Washington Post article about the situation.
ONe article I read said that she had double checked with a supervisor and confirmed she was correct. The hospital security staff just watched and did not aid her at all.
This matter is so disturbing on many levels. The abuse of authority displayed by this officer is shameful. The underlying interest of the police department to pursue drawing this bystander’s blood is highly suspect (as indicated by OP). If they treat a law abiding citizen in this manner to reach whatever twisted objective of their department, it’s no wonder that people in certain communities cannot place trust in the police.
What I’ve read so far didn’t give me the feeling the cop would be punished. The chief and mayor apologized to the nurse and said they’d review procedures, but I haven’t seen much about consequences for the cop. The nurse was also, in my mind, too forgiving to the cop as well, saying she wanted education and a review of procedures.
The craziest thing of all is that the procedure she was following, i.e. Requesting a warrant for a blood draw on an unconscious person who wasn’t under arrest, was developed in cooperation with that same police department!!!
In the video, the nurse has her supervisor on her cell and on speaker. Supervisor confirms the nurse is correct in her protocol and understanding of the law. Supervisor tells police officer, “You’re making a serious mistake” or something along those lines. They tried to reason with the cop. The cop goes ballistic and abuses his power anyway. Seems like in addition to a poor understanding of the law, the cop is too irrational and emotional. Can’t believe he ignored the supervisor’s warning that he was pursuing something he shouldn’t.
We cringe and judge other nations and societies for how the police state treats their citizens, confident that our nation, our laws and our humanitarian tendencies do better and are better. Are we?
Another layer on this for me is whether this officer would have treated a male who was challenging his authority in the same manner. Anyone walking around in non-male bodies who can imagine themselves standing up for what’s legally or morally right needs to see the entire video. Despite the fact that the supervisor on the phone is making the final decision, the officer decides to attack the female nurse.
@ThinkOn many of us have known for a long time that we live in a militarized police state where cops often have unrestrained, unchecked power over life and death.
It’s not true that a nurse cannot collect blood from a patient without his consent due to the patient’s unconsciousness. Nurses do this all the time in the hospital in emergent situations where there is no next of kin present to give consent or if time is of the essence. However, that is typically done as a therapeutic measure and results are only shared with the health care team (rather than releasing the results to a police department trying to find out if they can assign partial culpability to the victim).
Let’s say a patient comes in unconscious after a car accident. Whether or not there is a suspicion that the patient could have been driving drunk, a drug screen might well be done in order to find out if drugs in the patient’s system could affect his treatment plan. I’m thinking that the police would need a warrant to secure the results of the blood work, but I’m not totally sure. It seems like a reasonable assumption.
In this same situation, I also would have refused.