Utah hospital nurse is roughed up and arrested by cop for doing her job

You bastard

 

Definitely did not take it as you being anything other than interested in my opinion.

I suppose perhaps we may just have differing opinions as to what excessive is. To me, a basic citizen, it's anything physically beyond what is necessary to perform the duties of the job. She did not pose a threat, she was not in an elevated state of emotion, and other than telling him he couldn't get the blood draw (her understanding of company policy), she had not disobeyed anything and had not broken any law. Then when you consider that it was in the ER, and everyone up to that point was respectful of the professional protocol, he went batshit. He shoved her against a wall and hustled her outside. She only started to yell at the surprise of it all and it was all UNNECESSARY. He escalated a calm but frustrating situation.

As a citizen, I'm not seeing the officer's perspective here.

 

Let's say the legal aspects were correct....I never heard her refuse an order to turn around, or put her hands behind her back. She wasn't trying to run away or avoid him. Why go straight to force?

Exactly. He didn't follow any sort of "normal" procedure. That "we're done" is the flashpoint I alluded to earlier. He made a decision to go all-in when there was no indication that she would refuse, run, or evade. It would have been no different to me if he'd pulled out a taser gun and zapped her.

But they aren't exactly the same in 2 very specific aspects. First, not everyone who gets detained, gets arrested/booked. And second, he never told her "you're being detained"....there was no informing going on, he just went straight to "we're done" and batshit.

I'll be the first to admit there are all kinds of law enforcement subtleties that I'm not familiar with and may be missing in this story. All I can do is judge it as a private citizen and ask myself how I would react and feel if I was the nurse. She was trying to do her job, she remained respectful and professional, followed all the correct protocol as an employee, and basically got bum rushed by a cop. It would scare and frustrate the hell out of me too. I'm not a litigious type so I don't foresee myself suing but I sure as hell would want the officer to be either punished or fired and I would expect my employer to step up in some way.

 

@uscvball i see where you're coming from. And that makes sense. Sometimes you have to go there. This guy did not. If you want to get technical, the nurse never really knew she was under arrest, just that something was happening. We call these guys cowboys. Still living in the old west of law enforcement. Making it hard on the rest of us to do a simple job.

 

Aren't guys like that useful when you want to play good cop-bad cop?

 

Shit no. You want to talk to the FBI? Cause that's how you talk to the FBI.

Good cop bad cop works so well in the movies, though.

Edit: good cop bad cop works so well with 2 smart cops who can play chess.

 

I try to consider both perspectives when these kinds of stories come out. I respect law enforcement and I think cops have gotten such a bad rap based on a few, like this guy. It's extra frustrating because it's a nurse he went after.....not some yahoo on the street, and she was working with a critical patient. The incident occurred in an ER. There's enough chaos at times, so this kind of nonsense should not be happening and I'd wish for both sides to consider that. Even the other hospital employees were trying to talk the cop down and tell him he was going too far. They didn't try to interfere, but to de-escalate. For me, that is what cops should do, if they've had the training.

 

In this video (from the cop's body-cam), when he says "we're done", she immediately began backing away from him. That is non-compliance. He placed his hands on her to guide her. When she immediately begins physical resistance then he begins pushing. The use of force continuum always allows a use of force level one step higher than the resistance that is being met. Physical non-compliance allows soft empty-hand control (guiding, pushing). If he had said "Come with me" or "You're under arrest", then he would have been totally in the clear of she had still done the same thing.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/01/health/utah-nurse-arrest-police-video/index.html

Being arrested and being booked are two different things. An arrest does not necessarily mean that someone will face criminal charges.

I watched a little more about this story. It seems the driver who died was driving a tractor-trailer. I know this is Utah, but in Louisiana the officer could obtain a blood sample from a commercial driver without charges, without a warrant, and without consent. And I'm fairly certain they were not asking the nurse to collect the blood. They had a phlebotomist with them and the nurse was attempting to prevent the cop's phlebotomist from collecting the blood.

 

The nurse was doing her job. If she had agreed she could have lost her job and potentially her license. Dude way overreacted and I can't see it looking too good for him at this point

 

Yep no reason to over analyze this barney fife. He fucked up due to his power trip. The nurse took one for individual rights. Props to her. Fuck that asshole cop. Nothing to rationalize here.