Is there any wiggle room on this one? Seems straight forward which makes it even more of an alarming case.
Salt Lake City, UT — For refusing to do the illegal bidding of a Salt Lake City police detective, a University Hospital nurse was assaulted and arrested. Now, she is showing the public the video of the attack to let them know how untrained in the law some officers can be and how this can lead to innocent people having their rights violated.
The footage is from an incident on July 26. It is from University Hospital and officer body cameras and it shows Detective Jeff Payne attempting to convince nurse Alex Wubbels to get a blood sample from a patient who’d been injured in a fatal car accident.
In the video, Wubbels is attempting to explain to the officer that blood cannot be taken from an unconscious patient unless there is a warrant, the patient is under arrest, or the patient consents. None of these factors were present at the time Payne was demanding blood, so Wubbles was merely following the law.
This infuriated the detective, who at one point during the conversation resorted to making threats against Wubbles.
“I either go away with blood in vials or body in tow,” Payne says.
Wubbles confirms with several hospital officials and again tells Payne that it is against the law to draw the victim’s blood. Instead of simply obeying the law, Payne chose to assault and kidnap the nurse.
After Payne arrests Wubbles, he then begins planning his spiteful revenge on the rest of the hospital for refusing to break the law.
“I’ll bring them all the transients and take good patients elsewhere,” Payne says.
In spite of kidnapping an innocent woman on video for the sole act of refusing to break the law for a cop, Payne has yet to face any punishment. The only thing that happened to him was that he was temporarily suspended from the department’s blood-draw program that teaches cops how to get blood samples. However, he remains on regular duty.