Just read what the officer said after putting the nurse in the squad car - “So… I gotta decide what we’re gonna do with this young lady." Blech. I hope he gets SOME kind of punishment!
My daughter is an emergency room nurse in a city with a high crime rate, and this makes me sick. In addition to worrying about her with being kicked, hit, spit on, threatened by rival gangs, dealing with psychotic patients, etc., I now get to worry about the police, who the nurses count on for protection, behaving like this. Disgusting.
I read that the two officers have put on leave and the nurse has received an apology from the mayor and police chief. She is now advocating for the re-education of police officers so they fully understand the current laws (which seems quite reasonable).
According to reports, Payne was on vidcam admitting he couldn’t get a warrant from a judge because he had no probable cause.
Considering that, he also knew very well he had no legal foundation upon which make an arrest on the unconscious crash victim considering he wasn’t the suspect they were chasing.
Hence, their attempts to get the nurse to break hospital/professional procedures to get around it and their attempt to use “implied consent” despite the fact it hasn’t been legally valid in Utah since 2007 and a 2016 Supreme Court ruling made such use of “implied consent” to obtain blood unconstitutional.
@bone said:
This is a very rare occurrence. For the most part, police officers show nurses a lot of deference and respect. On my nursing forum, there are actually threads about how police usually give nurses a warning only when they are pulled over for traffic offenses. I don’t think this is something you would need to worry about too much. This guy was definitely a rogue. But I know moms are wired to worry. 
@nrdsb4 I have a lot of nurse friends so your post #44 is quite comforting.
People are upset in Salt Lake, http://www.sltrib.com/news/2017/09/02/salt-lake-city-police-other-departments-endure-growing-wave-of-public-criticism-after-nurses-arrest/.
From the article, numerous people called 911 to report an assault at the hospital that matched the details of what happened.
@Nrdsb4 Thank you for commenting. My daughter keeps telling me to chill, it’s fine, but it helps to hear it from a nurse who is also a mom, lol.
But the cop had no problem putting the nurse under arrest and there was no legal foundation for that.
The cop was saying there were no grounds for a warrant, but really the standard is very low because the driver was involved in a fatal accident. He was clearly being unreasonable. Even with the nurse under arrest, he still wasn’t getting his blood draw. I’m not saying the truck driver would have been charged with anything, but if the cop declared that he was under arrest, he would have gotten his blood draw.
The nurse does not have to “obey” the cop even if the driver was under arrest. She may get in trouble with her employer, if the hospital policy is to comply with police requests, but she should be able to say “no” for any or no reason without fear of arrest or legal consequences. The cop is nobody’s boss.
Likely because Detective Payne was instructed by his watch commander Lt. Tracy to arrest her for “obstructing their investigation” under the mistaken idea that they’d be more likely to get away with it because they assumed in their reports that they could rely on “implied consent”.
An assumption which turned out to have been gravely mistaken as “implied consent” was struck down as law by state court in 2007 showing they were at best grossly ignorant of the laws they were supposed to be aware of/enforce.
Also, what could they arrest the truck driver for? Being a victim of a car crash caused by a suspect trying to evade a high speed chase?
FWIW, the victim of all of this is still in the hospital. He’s from Idaho and people are raising money on his and his wife’s behalf for hospital bills and the costs of staying by him in SLC.
It’s a gofundme under “Bill Gray Accident Fund.” It was launched prior to this case exploding into the national spotlight.
It only took a month, the release of the video, nationwide bad publicity, and an outside criminal investigation for the police department to place the cop on administrative leave. 
So the guys in white shirts who are standing around doing nothing are University Police for the hospital.
Now the hospital has changed its policy and will not let police in patient care areas and will have “house supervisors” interact with them so nurses can do their own jobs.
Unbelievable that this video had to be publicly aired, and go viral, before some higher ups would even view it.
Not important enough… needs national outrage before someone moves their rear end. Pfft.
(Just as unbelievable as the fact that someone has to die or get severely injured in an accident before a traffic light gets installed at a dangerous crosswalk!..)
I realize I don’t know all of the facts, but I don’t understand why hospital legal council did not step in after the incident to defend the nurse. It doesn’t seem like the hospital has done a good job standing by their employee. If they had stepped up immediately after the incident, I would assume the police chief would have seen the video much earlier and an investigation would have been opened shortly after the incident.
That Officer Payne is just a bully. He must have known he had no legal basis for an arrest but he lost his temper and put her in handcuffs anyway. And he was so rough with her – I have to assume the hospital security did not assist her because they feared for their own safety. He was armed and obviously not in any reasonable frame of mind.
I hope he is removed from active duty. Same for his supervisor who floated the idea of an arrest in the first place. This was just an abuse of power.
Yes, the nurse has been publicly critical not only of the police but of the hospital/university security who did not step up and come to her aid. From what I read at least as of now she is not looking to go to court to sue for damages but is pushing for the re-education of police and hospital/university security. It seems she is handling this in as classy and positive a manner as possible.
My friend who is a nurse was pulled over by an officer for talking on her cell phone. She immediately apologized and promised not to do it but explained she was a nurse who had just gotten off her shift and gotten a call from work. She got a warning instead of a ticket and was instructed not to be on the cell while driving.
My friends who are nurses (for decades) get along with the police and have not related scary actions by them like this one. Wow! Sad that this officer is a bad, rogue officer–there are always a few out there.
On the ‘Today Show’ nurse Alex explicitly said that a civil lawsuit IS NOT off the table, and I was glad to hear that. This event could have been much, much worse, given Payne’s demeanor. Is this his first unjustified altercation? We may not find out, but it’s clear that he is a card short of a full deck when he feels his authority or testosterone is impugned. That’s a dangerous trait for a policeman. I hope that this event is the innocuous event that leads to a deeper investigation, so we can find out what other mischief this guy has been up to. His part-time job could be a smoking gun…given his own statements about ‘preferred patients.’