Utah nurse arrested for refusing to illegally draw blood

Some people still don’t understand why the police are so widely distrusted and scorned, including a lot of cops. Maybe it has something to do with behavior like this:

From Reason.com:

Behold, Salt Lake City Police Det. Jeff Payne arresting Nurse Alex Wubbels in July for refusing to violate an unconscious—comatose, actually—man's rights by drawing his blood for the police without any sort of warrant whatsoever[.]

What Payne did here is patently, inescapably wrong in just about every possible way. Just one year ago the Supreme Court ruled that police must get a warrant or consent in order to draw a person's blood. It's utterly inconceivable that Payne, who is a trained phlebotomist with the police, did not know this. According to coverage from the Salt Lake Tribune, Payne acknowledged that he didn't have probable cause to get a warrant, but nevertheless insisted he had the authority to demand Wubbels draw blood.

But Payne did not have the authority to demand the blood draw and Wubbels was not "interfering" with a police investigation as they insisted at the time. Unsurprisingly, she was released later at the hospital and was not charged with any crime.

The man whose blood the police wanted to draw? He wasn’t a suspect. He was in a coma because of a high-speed police chase that ended when the fleeing perp crashed into his semi truck, killing the suspect and badly injuring the truck driver. Though even if the comatose man had done something wrong, police still wouldn’t be allowed to draw his blood without either a warrant or his consent, neither of which they had received.

I’m sure Detective Payne comported himself in a manner that he believed was justified, somehow. What the rest of the world sees is a power-abusing goon who lashed out at a medical professional who politely refused to let him violate a comatose patient’s rights.

Payne – who, as a phlebotomist, had zero excuse for not knowing any better – has been suspended from his blood-drawing duties. He needs to be fired, as does his lieutenant who also overstepped his authority and then scorned the terrified nurse they had wrongly detained. In fact, Nurse Wubbels is the only person in this affair who did what they were supposed to do.

But sure, the growing dislike for police in the US is all about reverse racism or something.

(via @Popehat)