It really isn't about hospital policy except to the extent that hospital policy was created to avoid committing actual crimes (which is what drawing blood without permission or medical necessity is, technically). Making the cop arrest her was good legal protection for her. I don't know where the line is in terms of how firmly she had to resist to be certain she wasn't vulnerable to legal charges for cooperating.
Police will not allow any challenge to their authority. It must be such a head trip to walk around all day with that sense of entitlement. At best, that's tempered with a deep sense of obligation and humility.
Best is very hard to find these days.
Yup. The patient in the case was the victim in a head-on collision with someone who was fleeing the cops, so the suspicion is that they were requesting a blood draw in the hopes of finding something that would undermine any lawsuit he might bring. The cops didn't have probable cause or a warrant, and the nurse has HIPAA.
Aside from the Constitution (which has much bigger problems these days), I can't imagine going into a burn ward and fucking with the people treating a person injured in an accident, especially one that wasn't their fault.
If you believe the fake media, the nurse is a former Olympian.
Of course, the obvious solution to problems like this is to cut taxes on the wealthiest Americans.
Asshole cop who deserves a major disciplinary beatdown. You can hear someone on his phone telling him "Sarge you're making a mistake" and then the uber authoritarian "We're done here" and forcefully grabbing the nurse who isn't resisting or anything. Good policing is so important to society but cops like this one are why so many people detest police.
You can hear someone on his phone telling him "Sarge you're making a mistake"
No, I think the person on the phone is the nurse's supervisor. He know the nurse personally (calls her "Alex" and counsels her about what she should do), and says, "Sir, you're making a mistake," to the cop.
Not that I disagree so much with your larger point, but I don't think this is an example of an out-of-control asshole cop that went rogue against the instructions of his supervisor.
Not really. The article in 5 says he was ordered to arrest the nurse by his lieutenant.
A neighboring police department sent Payne, a trained police phlebotomist, to collect blood from the patient and check for illicit substances, as the Tribune reported. The goal was reportedly to protect the trucker, who was not suspected of a crime. His lieutenant ordered him to arrest Wubbels if she refused to let him draw a sample, according to the Tribune.
Oops. I should be agreeing with you. I missed the "Don't". Sorry.
And anyway, in this story from the Salt Lake Tribune, the cop is bragging to another cop, after the arrest, about how he's going to punish the hospital* for the nurses's lack of cooperation, so clearly he didn't expect his actions to be generally condemned by his department.
*In his second job, not in his capacity as a police officer.
I re-listened and you're right that it's someone from the hospital on the speakerphone saying "Sir [not Sarge] you're making a mistake.." I'll stay with the rest of what I wrote though -- the officer's actions are bad policing. He could simply tell the nurse "Mam, I am placing you under arrest" in a calm and professional manner. Instead he got aggressive and dramatic and heightened the confrontation. If that's his view of proper policing, then god help him and whoever else is involved if he ever gets into a tiff with someone who's armed, because it will end in shots fired.
The goal was reportedly to protect the trucker, who was not suspected of a crime.
How was drawing blood going to protect him. If there was no illicit substances in his blood, it doesn't do him any good as, if they couldn't draw the blood, they couldn't convict him. If there are illicit substances in his blood, then he's vulnerable.
The reasoning in 3 (protect department from liability) makes so much more sense.
The office was not only certified in phlebotomy but also had a second job with an ambulance company! How can you do either of those things without HIPAA training? I think he got frustrated with the nurse because he knew perfectly well he was asking her to break the law (plus open herself up to being fired for cause) and that being calm about it would never work.
To be clear, I think it vanishingly unlikely the nurse would have been charged. But she if she paid any attention at all in class and the mandatory training everybody gets in health care, she certainly would expect to have been fired if she had cooperated.
Is this even HIPAA territory? Isn't it pre-HIPAA, plain old "consent to undergo a procedure" as required by state and probably also federal law?
I agree this is beyond HIPAA, but HIPAA is what they make everybody learn about and this would also violate HIPAA.
Nurses probably get more training on consent than I do. I'm just pointing out that I don't think it is some kind of obscure point of constitutional law that the officer didn't understand or that the nurse was taking some kind of usual stand. She was just doing her job.
Totally random lurker here who, ugh, may have a friend in this dept and particular dept bureau. Rumors might say the detective in this incident a know it all old timer without a lot of people skills and the general thinking among most of the other detectives is that this particular detective along with the on duty watch commander did a hugely stupid thing that is a guaranteed lucrative settlement for the nurse.
The guy is surely already fired from his ambulance job, right?
Is baffled that a totally random lurker swiftly lept to mastery of the presidential conventions.
I'm just pointing out that I don't think it is some kind of obscure point of constitutional law that the officer didn't understand or that the nurse was taking some kind of usual stand.
What at play here is Utah's implied consent law. The detective thought he could invoke this implied consent in this case to take blood and he's wrong. The law clearly states this applies to a suspect in a crime and the penalty for refusal is civil rather than criminal. This patient was a victim and the implied consent law does not apply. And if you're going to arrest someone for obstruction of justice you'd better be able to articulate the crime being investigated. This was a victim where the suspect was already dead. In this case you're not furthering a criminal investigation by getting the victim's blood.
And even if it was a criminal investigation, just get the warrant and avoid this clusterfuck. The hospital had already drawn blood. Just write a warrant for that blood or one for your own blood draw. There's an electronic warrant system in place. You fire off that warrant from your laptop and it pages the on call judge and they view it and electronically sign it and send it right back to you. Blood draws for fatal accidents and DUI's are a routine thing. Guys have templates for them and can whip out a blood draw warrant in just a few minutes.
Can't believe the OP didn't link to the scene with the sloths in zootopia.
29 is kind of magnificent. Was it meant for the thread below? Was it meant for this thread? UNDECIDABLE. (Just to be safe, though, maybe all of the posts should link to the sloth scene.)
hat scene is legitimately very funny, yet not funny enough to make me watch a whole movie about talking animals.
So funny I forgot to proofread my comment.
I largely hated Zootopia, so I'd say definitely give it a miss unless you're intensely curious about the progress of social justice fatigue in the run-up to the 2016 election. But it cracks me up that urple put the comment in this thread and not the Night Court thread.
Teddy Roosevelt, could you say something about the degree of blame on the watch commander vs. the detective? From the reporting, it sounds like the WC was just completely wrong about the law, which is not the best thing. And how bad for the detective would it have been to say, no, I'm not arresting the nurse, once told to do that?
The unconscious victim, it turns out, was also a cop.
36: that makes sense; suspect dies in a collision with a police officer, they probably wanted to be as sure as possible that it was definitely not the police officer's fault and that includes "was the officer fit to drive? Yes absolutely, we drew his blood immediately after the death and he didn't have any alcohol or anything in it."
35: I'm not arresting the nurse, once told to do that
What probably happened is that the watch commander approved the arrest rather than ordered it. In the department there's a practice of "arrest checks". It's a practice from LAPD as a part of their consent decree with DOJ back in the day and was instituted in Salt Lake by a chief who was retired LAPD. What it entails is that every custodial arrest has to be approved by a supervisor. By custodial arrest I mean the suspect is cuffed and going to be booked into jail. Sgt's and Watch Commanders aren't (usually) called and asked if there should be an arrest. The primary officer or detective makes the call to arrest and then by policy has to call for the arrest check which is typically done in person by the supervisor. The street cop lays out what he/she has to the supervisor and the supervisor then either approves the arrest and sends them off to jail or they can intervene and inform that officer that they don't have probable cause. They also ask a couple questions of the arrestee, "do you understand why you're being arrested and the charges" and "are you sick or injured".
It's supposed to be an added layer of accountability to ensure the legality of every custodial arrest and also make street guys more wary of things like extra judicial beatings because they know a supervisor will be asking their suspect if he is injured. The entire point of the arrest review is to catch and prevent bad arrests so unless the detective actively deceived the watch commander about the nature and facts of the arrest the greater part of the blame is almost certainly on the watch commander.
36: Huh, I hadn't heard that aspect yet. 37 might be right but I couldn't say for sure as I've not specifically heard as to whether they had that knowledge prior to the blood draw request.
It doesn't sound like they did because the victim's department didn't know for a few days. Also, I'm not sure what "reserve officer" means.
To be clear, 37 is not a defence of what they did. It's just a suggestion of how drawing the victims blood could have been seen as a way of protecting them.
They wanted to use a Juicero for the draw.
Oops yes I meant to leave that comment on the thread below.
Speculation about the motivation behind the illegal attempt to draw blood https://mobile.twitter.com/obarcala/status/903986410352513024
Speculation about the motivation behind the illegal attempt to draw blood https://mobile.twitter.com/obarcala/status/903986410352513024
Zootopia is great. It's a whole kids' movie whose message is "Sexism is bad. Racism... also bad."
Yeah, if the cops understood themselves not to have probable cause that seems on the significant side.
26. It seems the cop was fired today from his job as ambulance driver.
He could probably move to Ohio, take the police job away from a serving officer there, and improve the forces in both states.