Late last week, we learned about what may be one of the most outrageous instances of cops behaving badly yet. A Salt Lake City detective wanted nurses at an area hospital to get a blood sample from the victim of a car crash. The nurse on duty repeatedly told him that the victim was unconscious, and the situation didn’t meet the criteria that would allow a blood draw from an unconscious patient.
The detective tried to have the nurse arrested, but cooler heads prevailed, and she was not charged. Now the detective is the one facing a criminal investigation. But a writer for The Daily Caller thinks we’ve got it all wrong. He actually thinks the cop is the real victim here, and the nurse deserved everything she got.
For those who missed it, here’s a quick review. On the night of July 26, Salt Lake City police detective Jeff Payne wanted some blood from truck driver William Gray, who was severely injured when a drunk driver plowed into his semi. However, when he went to University of Utah Hospital to get the blood, the head nurse of the burn unit, Alex Wubbels, refused to allow the draw. She cited hospital policy that only allowed police to draw blood without a patient’s consent if the police had a warrant or the patient was under arrest.
Gray was not under arrest, and the police didn’t have a warrant. Wubbels rightly told Payne that since Gray was unconscious and couldn’t give consent, Payne couldn’t get blood. Payne admitted that the request didn’t meet the criteria, but claimed that there were exigent circumstances that required the hospital to allow the draw. He then threatened to have Wubbels arrested for interfering with an investigation.
However, Wubbels, with the full backing of her supervisors, refused to bend. Payne then grabbed her, cuffed her, and hauled her to his car. Watch footage from Payne’s body cam, courtesy of The Deseret News.
The video shows Wubbels patiently explaining the hospital’s blood draw policy to Payne, with Wubbels’ supervisor, Brad Wiggins, on speakerphone. Wiggins tells Payne that he’s making “a huge mistake” by threatening her.” Apparently it went in one of Payne’s ears and out the other, because he pushed her through the doors of the emergency room, cuffed her and stuffed her in his patrol car. She stayed handcuffed for 20 minutes before being released without charges.
Wubbels’ attorney, Karra Webber, managed to get Payne’s bodycam footage several weeks ago. However, Wubbels waited until last Thursday to come forward because she wanted to make sure she was composed enough to talk about this incredibly traumatic situation.
Salt Lake City’s police chief and mayor issued an unreserved apology to Wubbels, and Payne has been placed on leave pending a criminal investigation. Meanwhile, Wubbels has been universally praised for her professionalism, with interim hospital CEO Gordon Grabtree calling her “an Olympic-sized hero” who put her safety on the line to protect her patient. In an appearance on CNN’s “New Day” on Monday, Wubbels said that she hasn’t ruled out a lawsuit, though for now she wants to “re-educate” both police and her fellow health care workers on how to react in situations like this.
According to lawyer and freelance writer Gregg Re, however, Payne is the one who is the victim here. In a piece that ran in The Daily Caller on Monday, Re claimed that driving a commercial truck in Utah constitutes implied consent to alcohol testing. Re also contended that Payne was well within his rights to demand a blood draw due to “the imminent loss of blood evidence.” As proof, he cites Missouri v. McNeely, a 2013 Supreme Court case that found warrantless blood draws were permitted in some drunk-driving cases.
But as Salon’s Charlie May points out, Re forgot one important detail. That case allowed warrantless blood draws from drunk drivers, not an “injured bystander” like Gray. Apparently he also forgot that just last year, in Birchfield v. North Dakota, the Supreme Court ruled that warrantless breath tests were permissible in some drunk-driving cases–but not warrantless blood tests. Even before then, the Supreme Court of Utah ruled in 2007 that the loss of blood evidence was not an exigent circumstance.
So if it were up to Re, a police officer could barge in and demand a blood draw from a drunk driving victim, even when it is clear beyond any doubt that he is a victim and even when he is unconscious. Who wants to live in that world?
No one with a shred of decency could watch that video and conclude that Payne was in the right–or that Wubbels, as Re puts it, “had it coming” for not backing down. It says a lot about Re that he could even think Wubbels was wrong. And it says even more that The Daily Caller greenlighted this article.
(featured image: screenshot from YouTube)
