To not understand why the nurse was arrested?

[exisaknob]

Why would you arrest someone for refusing to take blood from someone unconscious?

Was the policeman on glue?!

Even if say it was actually policy, surely you just ask for a superior and medics are allowed to refuse to perform any procedure personally?

No I haven't seen that one.

I did hear something in that video that confuses me.

He said (I think to another officer) "at what point do they realise they're violating [something]" (I didn't fully make it out) and then followed with "when they hear the click click"

I assume he meant click click of handcuffs but part of me wonders if he meant the click click of a gun!!

I didn't hear that, that's awful.

It makes me worried, because this is how they've acted on video, to a professional and in front of many professionals. Imagine how they would act towards someone who hasn't got all that. It makes me a bit sick thinking about it.

The attitude of the police in the longer video is that "this hospital has a problem"

As if the hospital regularly prevents them from what they want. Presumably by treating their patients in the way they should be treated

Yes when you think of all the vulnerable people they engage with during a working day. People who don't know their rights as this nurse did. People with mental health issues or learning difficulties or under the influence or even children. Very scary to think of what those officers have been doing and getting away with.

Yes exisa he clearly wants to put this hospital back in its place and teach them to just comply with his demands. I suspect this isnt the first time he has tried to go round the law to make his job easier. This hospital is a university hospital. Does that mean a teaching hospital? I'm just wondering if it is likely this place is maybe less willing to bend the rules because it is teaching and enforcing ethics and liability stuff all the time.

Thing is if that nurse HAD done what they wanted her to do, she could have lost her nursing registration and been sacked and sued. She did the right thing and I don't even know her but i'm proud of her for it.

The only thing that bothers me is he wont be sacked, she will get a pay out which I'm glad of for the distress, but its american tax payers that will pay for it. not him.

@BackieJerkhart Yes, they can if they're trained as phlebotomists. That police department have a blood draw program. The cop also works as an ambulance transporter. Seeing how the event played out, who can guarantee if some crooked cops or someone somewhere along the chain won't taint the blood to get the results they want.

The nurse is a much bigger person than me. I would go to the lawsuit route because it's always the same spiel "We will learn from this..."

Do you know if the police can draw blood without consent? They seemed to think they could take it from the unconscious patient so that sounds like if the man had been in their custody they would take blood without consent.

It was laid out that the blood could be taken if they had a warrant, or the patient were under arrest, or if the patient gave consent. So yes, if in police custody, they probably could.

At one point, they mentioned about how they could get consent afterwards. That would probably apply if it was a left over sample, that had been taken for patient treatment purposes, but not all used. But not (at least in UK) for taking a fresh sample. Of course, in the UK a pre-existing sample would presumably tend to fall foul of chain of evidence rules...

Wow so if under arrest and the person didn't consent they would take blood by force. Presumably they would have to sedate them for that which would presumably affect the blood readings?

There's a thing called implied consent and the police man was trying to use that, but since the person was not under arrest or have a warrant, the police had no right to have blood under implied consent

If I've got that right I'm not sure the officer should be taken off duty or disciplined. He was following the training and orders he was given.

It's not at all clear that he was following training. The report says that the fundamental principle that the police cannot take blood other than in three specified circumstances is very well established and very well known. This individual is specifically a police phlebotomist, so you would expect this to be an issue he has dealt with before, and you would expect him to make sure he knows the law - not just from what he might have been told by his superiors, but actually going back to the textbooks and case reports. If he didn't know that his superior was wrong, it sounds like he clearly should have.

And even if he was convinced he was right, he was talking to two experienced people who were equally clear that the opposite was the truth and who showed him evidence of that fact. He wasn't just talking to some random loudly proclaiming his rights, these were again people he should have realised had come across this issue before. As a minimum, you would expect him to go back and double check.

Like you've touched upon, even if he did think he was right in his protocol you don't go putting your hands and attempting to arrest someone. The fact he didn't formally arrest speaks volumes

There's mutual respect here.

I've had police ask for records and I've not been able to give them because they haven't followed protocol. We have discussed it and sorted it out, I have never been abused and cuffed

What I find alarming is the way he just suddenly snaps and loses his temper with a woman who is being perfectly polite and non-confrontational towards him. I don't see how you can have officers in place who can't control their tempers in that sort of situation. That is precisely the sort of officer who loses it under even minimal stress and starts randomly shooting people.

This is terrifying.

Boom boom you seem to be wilfully making shit up, no in the uk it not even down to hospital policy it is the law, same in the USA. And reading more fully? That officer was far to long in the tooth not to know this basic point of law. He was a man who is used to getting his own way and flipped out for no reason and if he did only follow instruction his superior should be dealt with but given the way the other police reacted which was to not help him or back him up they knew he was being a fuck wit.

And I too thought she would be dead if she had been black

And and the truck driver was a victim too he was not the one in the police chase... but I just bet that police office was

Also agree that part of the reason I'm so shocked is that, in general, the police I have encountered in various hospitals are usually involved in teamwork, and communicating, and basically all trying to work together. And, yes, protecting us.

@BackieJerkhart They can't draw blood without a warrant. The cops were trying to bully the Nurse and citing old ruling.

"The craziest thing was that the arresting officer told people on site (on video) that he moonlighted as security with an ambulance company, and he'd make sure all the transients who couldn't pay went to that hospital, and send the good patients elsewhere"

"No charges filed.
You know what this means? She was arrested for the usual charge, "Contempt of Cop." This is where you subvert a Cop's all-encompassing authority by refusing his request.
You can see when he decides she's guilty of this. It occurs right when her supervisor (on speakerphone) tells him, "You're making a mistake. This is a mistake."
Suddenly, his all-encompassing authority is being subverted. He is being told that he is wrong. And even worse, he's being told that by a normal citizen. How dare they tell him he can't do what he wants.
That's when he decides she's going to jail. On what charge? "Interfering with an investigation," a charge that doesn't exist, but one that he uses as an excuse to arrest her.
As cops will always say, "You can avoid the rap, but you can't avoid the ride."
Until we start holding them accountable, and not only firing them, but criminally charging them for abusing their authority, this will never change."

This is a totally bad cop and am positive an unrepentant one. I bet he'll still be on the force until time to cash in on his retirement.

If you're interested most of the info I gather and reading up on the laws or court case etc can be found on reddit r/news titled Video shows Utah nurse screaming, being dragged into...

Seems to me that the American police forces are verging on the just out of control margin.

That and the number of guns in circulation?.

Still suppose it always was the Wild West;!

And still is:-(

I found it interesting that the guy who crouched down at the kept repeating that all she was saying was "no no no no". What he meant was all he was hearing was "no no no no" because he didn't actually want to listen to what she was saying. She wasn't saying no. She was stating hospital policy, her superior was stating hospital policy.

I also suspect the handcuffing guy put her in the car with the intention of scaring someone else into giving him what he wanted and then she would have been released. It just happened that he was prevented from going back in to get what he wanted because a bigger deal was made of the arrest than he expected would happen.

It's great it was captured on his bodycam, at the same time though, as PP have said, it makes it more shocking/disturbing that he knows full well he's on camera and so must think he's beyond reproach.

If you think that so many of them have been blatantly caught killing unarmed (mostly non-white) people and have skipped off into the sun set without even a smack on the wrist, this wanker's not going to be disciplined is he??

Retraining is all that's been mentioned. The way he behaved though involved so much more than an afternoon outlining the law surrounding officers taking blood could ever handle.

This is the vid of the crash, it's a bit in the distance, but you can see the person they're chasing swerve into the victims lorry, he had no chance to avoid it. Hope he's on the mend now.

YY agent

If someone who works in health does something of this magnitude, they are immediately put on leave, or sacked. They'd eventually have their reg taken away and never allowed to work in the profession again.

Yet this man has merely been moved to another department,

It shows the absolute apathy they show.

There'll be a pay out. Which the tax payer will pay. Perhaps if individuals and individual police departments were responsible for pay outs then they might take it seriously

I just can't see how any logical thought got him to "arrest this woman" if I don't get blood from this unconscious RTA victim right now.

I think it was probably 'this woman doesn't know know her proper place, and I need to show her' to be honest.

Awful behaviour. She was very brave.

I know she was doing what every nurse should do, but I hope she gets some sort of award for this. She advocated for her patient damn well, despite being intimidated and threatened. I have a lot of respect for her.

Holy fuck! The suspect looks like he intended to kill himself driving so head on into truck?!