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‘This is crazy,’ sobs Utah hospital nurse as cop arrests her for doing her job
- zsleps 9y agoWhy does this belong on HN?
- dankohn1 9y agoBecause body cams are the most important technology for freedom of the decade.
- zsleps 9y agoThis article isn't about body cameras.
- dankohn1 9y agoYou think any of us would ever have heard about this is the cop hadn't been required to wear a body camera?
- chapium 9y agoAre you under the impression hospital ER is not monitored?
- zsleps 9y agoProbably on reddit.
- Jach 9y agoYes.
- jdironman 9y agoI want to understand the protocol for body cam footage and how it becomes released. Seems like this puts the officer in a bad light, so who released the footage and why? Is there a standard in place for releasing body cam video? How does it normally come into the hands of the public? I am not defending or praising the officer...I am genuinely curious. EDIT: Thanks, guys. I read up a bit on FOIA and have a much better understanding about that now.
- markhenderson 9y agoIIRC it's the result of an FOIA request
- jeffmould 9y agoIANAL, but in most cases, body cam video falls is available through a FOIA request. Often times either the media will file a request or a defense attorney, victim, or individual involved in the incident will have access and release the video on their own. Same with dash cam video from police cruisers.
- cabaalis 9y agoHaving worked for a local municipality IT: All the electronic information held by the city is public property. Emails, documents, videos; everything. When asked to release information, they are allowed to redact certain personal data points about citizens (such as SSNs) but they are obliged to release the requested information. This is because the public bought those servers, pays the employees, pays the bills to keep everything running, and therefore owns it all.
- markhenderson 9y agoWhy did you create this account just to post these comments? Why is this so important for you to criticize?
- sebleon 9y agoHN is community-driven. This happens to be something that was posted and upvoted a lot, showing that the community enjoys this content.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- rayiner 9y agoMy hopes and prayers are with this lady’s attorneys. May she get a comically large settlement.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- ajmurmann 9y ago... Out of the cops personal purse of possible.
- RandomInteger4 9y agoTo be honest, I don't think we should be seeking monetary settlements in cases like these, but rather criminal prosecution. Large settlements are about as good at deterring cops from committing crimes as they are at deterring bankers from committing fraud in the name of the bank, because in either case the "principal" -- person paying the penalty -- is neither the cop nor the banker. Police departments don't care because the money is coming from the taxpayers and not the cops. The banks don't care, because the fine they pay for the fraud is less than the profit taken by the fraud.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- uoaei 9y agoWhy not both? Send a message loud and clear that roughing up well-meaning and innocent citizens shall never be tolerated and will be prosecuted with a great risk to one's personal accumulated wealth.
- stupidcar 9y agoJust another cop on an insane power trip, driven to apoplectic rage by the idea that he cannot do whatever he wants to whomever he wants, whenever he wants. I look forward to his union standing squarely behind him and insisting he did nothing wrong.
- cyberferret 9y agoSaw this on earlier news reports and am flabbergasted at the police response to this. IMO the nurse was trapped between a rock and a hard place - she had to comply with hospital policy, as well as HIPAA standards or risk losing her licence and/or her job versus complying with a police command. I'm not a lawyer, so can't comment on whether the request from the police was legally valid or not, but the reaction to grab her and cuff her like that when she was not showing any signs of outward aggression or threats is beyond the pale. I also heard that the officer has not been disciplined or stood down from duty, only been restricted from collecting blood at the hospital in person again, which doesn't go towards solving the power imbalance and ethical problems here.
- rayiner 9y agoThe Supreme Court has clearly held that blood draws require a warrant (or consent obviously). Birxhfield v. North Dakota. It’s a 2015 case so the officer was probably just ignorant of it. But the hospital’s official policy should have clued him off. They don’t write those things for funsies.
- wyldfire 9y agoI think the legality of his command is independent of his actions taken as a consequence of it not being followed. I realize that this is exceptional but i wish we could ask (instead of "what's legal") -- "what do we expect the function of the police to be?" I'm not criticizing you or HN commenters, Im referring to the community involved. I just can't understand why the police, their unions and their superiors and peers don't ask this.
- dgzl 9y agoI've asked this question myself over the last few years and agree that it really needs to be addressed. I believe the truth is that we've created a new tier of government legal authority. The military has become incredibly powerful, while the requirements and danger of of being an officer have skyrocketed. I have no doubt we have a need for both of these positions, but the idea a lower-level peacekeeper existing and taking some/many responsibilities from a modern and militarized police officer interests me. At the same time, what functions should the police not fulfill that it currently is? Does anyone know about the Stanford prison experiments?
- ReedJessen 9y agoSometimes, it's the right thing to do to allow yourself to be arrested if it's in defense of others. Especially those who can't defend themselves under you care.
- wyldfire 9y agoShe might have felt strongly -- or she might have been well trained by hospital administrators and legal staff.
- dba7dba 9y agoAnd disciplined. The nurse competed in 2 separate Olympics as an Alpine skier. You can get to that level only with some insane amount of discipline and will power.
- cyberferret 9y agoI couldn't believe it when on other forums, people were criticising her for 'screaming' and 'resisting' arrest. Aside from the fact that there was no obvious reason to arrest her in the first place, she is a NURSE, a carer, on shift, probably working in an understaffed hospital and she had actual patients that needed her care that day. She probably had planned rounds to do and had medication to dispense, drips to change, patients to turn, and a million other things that are critical to keeping human beings cared for, healthy and alive in that environment. She certainly couldn't do any of that languishing in some filthy jail cell for no reason. To an altruistic person, the fact that they are denied performing their calling can be gut wrenching.
- cup 9y agoMore proof that it takes a white victim for the general public to start noticing abuses that have been standard for minorities.
- wpietri 9y agoI think this is an entirely valid point, and I'm disappointed to see it immediately downvoted to oblivion. If we're serious about ending police abuse of power, we have to make sure they're not abusing anybody. Otherwise people inclined to abuse authority have a training ground where level up their abuse skills.
- adventured 9y agoYour premise doesn't hold up very well. For example, in a given year over 50% more white people are shot and killed by police than eg black people. There's a sizable population difference, which points to the obvious imbalance of abuse by police toward black people, however that's still an immense number of white people getting shot. It would be considered insane in almost any other country. You're underestimating the awareness of the problem by white people, they've noticed the substantial amount of abuse & police militarization going on (which is why so many white people now support doing something about it, from ending the war on drugs to body cameras etc, the majority of white people support these changes).
- wyldfire 9y agoI don't think this is evidence of that at all. I think the general public has noticed abuses of minorities over the past several years and is appropriately outraged. The primary change I can see is the ubiquity of cameras. Their emergence and widespread popularity after the turn of the century has brought accountability to the most corrupt and dishonest among the police force. Everyone seems to be outraged at the abuses, whether the victim is minority or not. Unfortunately I think that minorities have suffered much more significantly under the boot of these corrupt authority figures.
- lewisj489 9y agoOn a unrelated note: Glad to see the hospital is using a modern OS (Windows 10) and not stuck on XP.
- temac 9y agoCan hospital security neutralise the rogue cop in a case like that?
- randlet 9y agoDoesn't matter much if they have the right or not; they probably want to go home to their kids later that night so they'll stay out of it if they value their safety.
- adventured 9y agoLegally there may be grounds to attempt it for safety reasons for patients (would have to look at state law most likely); I'm skeptical though, the police seem to always have overruling authority in such instances (for example they can dictate the actions of firemen, arrest them at the scene of a fire if they don't obey commands, etc). In practical terms, either way, trying it could likely be a death sentence (multiple cops were on the scene).
- mythrwy 9y agoThe fact there were multiple officers on the scene and not one of them stopped the arrest nor de-escalated the situation, nor in fact apparently knew the law betwixt all of them is even more disturbing. At that point it isn't one bad apple. It's a gang. We need some head crackers as police, unfortunate, yes, but this needs to be balanced by a different kind of personality. Going in guns blazing to every situation isn't the best way to handle things and is the root cause of many of these types of situations. Then the bureaucrat bosses just try to brush it all aside and nothing really gets resolved. We need less of those also. I think robots are the future of policing. But maybe not fully autonomous robots. More of a remote control type thing. Have people who are cultural sensitive, people who are empathetic, people who understand mental illness, people who understand the nuances of the law all in communication, watching and listening to the situation. See if you can deescalate, resolve, calm things down. If that doesn't work or there is immediate danger to bystanders give control over to the headcracker team. This would reduce costs anyway because right now you are paying grade school bullies to cruise around and interact infrequently with the public. These remote teams could perform a lot more interactions, one level of person could just monitor, perhaps control a number of bots, when the interaction escalates bring in the appropriate team for the situation. Make policing a work at home job:) Maybe have a Slack channel.
- randlet 9y ago"Salt Lake police spokesman Sgt. Brandon Shearer told local media that Payne had been suspended from the department’s blood draw unit but remained on active duty." Constantly reading things like this makes it extremely difficult to believe the "it's just few a bad apples" comments we always hear.
- ajmurmann 9y agoCops constantly protecting each other instead of reporting each other makes it very hard to trust the system.
- Overtonwindow 9y agoThe Blue Wall of Silence
- MaysonL 9y agoOne bad apple can spoil the barrel.
- pgnas 9y agoI believe that there is an element that gravitate to this line of work, not all, but a demographic and they are not weeded out.
- mnm1 9y agoThat's because it's not a few bad apples. It's everyone with possibly a few exceptions who still support the bad apples and are therefore bad themselves. In other gangs, there might be members who are not violent but they don't get a break because they're still affiliated with the gang. Well the cops are the biggest, most dangerous gang in America and none of them deserve a break. They are all bad apples supporting one another (see police unions and internal affairs) who don't give a fuck about anything or anyone but themselves. Our society would be better off without these thugs who think and act like they are above the law.
- 0xBA5ED 9y agoWell gee, I'm thoroughly outraged. Anyone else totally outraged right now? I am. Good job, Washington Post. See everyone back here tomorrow for more outrage? Okay then.
- ajmurmann 9y agoI'm always more than disappointed by who generally becomes a police officer. I dream of a world where police officers are obsessed with justice and have book clubs in which they discuss Peter Singer and Kant like software engineers might do with GoF for example.
- LouisSayers 9y agoMurica
- junkculture 9y agoThat cop belongs in jail. People who enforce the law should be held to higher standards. But he'll get paid leave, and will be back once it all blows over.
- soreq 9y agoLet us not mince our words. This has a name. More than one. It's called wrongful arrest, wrongful imprisonment and assault, she may (per laws of Utah) very well even have had the right to forceful self defence against the police offer but wouldn't have stood a chance. The perpetrator should be charged and convicted according to the full force of the law, the mayor's apology is meaningless, as it does not compensate for the crime, and is a tactic to prevent a wholesale pitchfork-bearing protest against law enforcement. Paid leave is theft of tax payers money, a compounded obscenity and effectively an evasion of justice and, frighteningly, for the need to state the bleeding obvious, law enforcement is not above the law. The police force conducting an internal (as opposed to an independent commission appointed by the DOJ) investigation adds insult to injury. What is needed is deterrence, i.e. costs for action of this kind. In fact it may be legal for someone to hypothetically with a spine, torque and some unusual but lawful requisite authorisation to arrest the police officer in question for the above crimes. The nurse was manifestly in the right legally, ethically and should be given an award for courage to stand up to someone bigger and stronger than her, who clearly lacks the judgement required for his office, to defend an unconscious patient in her care. This incident portends fascism, which always begin with arbitrary arrests. Dear nurse, let us applaud you for your professionalism, ethics and courage, and let us stand by you as you see the wrongs done to you made right.