When Salt Lake City Detective Jeff Payne told University of Utah Hospital nurse Alex Wubbels to draw blood from a badly burned comatose patient, she said no -- because Payne did not have a warrant.
She was right. It was illegal.
But that wasn't enough to stop the detective from arresting her. The horrifying incident was caught on body cameras.
According to the Deseret News, the patient was a truck driver who was severely burned in a head-on crash with a vehicle that was fleeing from police in Cache County and crossed into oncoming traffic.
The driver of the fleeing vehicle was killed.
Because the patient was not a suspect and didn't face potential criminal charges, and the officer did not have a warrant, charge nurse Wubbels refused to take blood. She showed Payne the written policy.
Payne threatened to arrest her for interfering with a criminal investigation -- and he did.
Salt Lake Police Sgt. Brandon Shearer said Thursday that Chief Mike Brown has seen the video and called it "very alarming." Payne is still on active duty with the department, but Shearer said he has been suspended from the blood draw program and an active internal investigation is underway.
Shearer also admitted that the department's blood-draw policy "hadn't been updated for a little bit" when the incident occurred. But since then, the policy has been changed and training is scheduled to make sure all officers are up to date on the policy, he said.
When asked what she thinks should happen to Payne, Wubbels was reserved in her comments, only stating, "I think he needs some serious training."
Porter said what is just as disturbing are comments caught on Payne's body camera video while he was talking to another officer. Payne can be heard talking about his other job as an ambulance driver, and how Wubbels' arrest might affect that.
"I’ll bring 'em all the transients and take the good patients elsewhere," he is heard saying about the hospital.
God bless law and order.
