Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Cops beating up Nurse protecting a patient's rights

Correct, from what I can gather, Implied Consent does NOT apply to CONSCIOUS people. A warrant is needed in Utah to draw blood if CONSCIOUS.

A warrant ISN'T needed to draw blood if UNCONSCIOUS, is what I gather.

Oh yeah, that is a bad arrest. That is why the nurse was released with out any charges.

The detective stated that the Lieutenant told him via telephone to arrest the nurse. The Lieutenant probably trusted the detective and will get burned. The officers that showed up and assisted in the arrest will get burned. The detective will get "training" and assigned somewhere with less public contact.

From what was seen in the video the nurse was being more than reasonable. I do not know the detective lost his cool.

That's even worse.

What if consent is a right taken away from anyone that's unconscious?

Daughter drinking at a party?

Slippery slope.

The dumb cop made a big mistake by not getting a warrant. That drawn blood evidence would be thrown out of court. The smart nurse was trying to educate the dumb cop about the law, which the dumb cop was sworn to uphold, but the dumb cop was dull of hearing. The smart nurse had every right to follow the hospital policy and protect her patient. Like we used to say in the Marines . . . "There's always that 10%!"

The first link you provided clearly states that the officer must has "reasonable cause" of a crime to draw blood.

In this situation the officer had no such cause, as the patient was the victim to the accused.

According to the article he admitted that he had no pc or rs, so implied concentrate does not apply.

All I'm telling you is that don't assume that 'they' can't draw blood from you without consent, having been arrested or without a warrant.

Since I wasn't there and since the press obviously always tells the truth and always has the facts correct, that must be case.

I don't think that question has been addressed by the courts yet. While the law doesn't specifically deny it, it also doesn't specifically authorize it.

For whatever reason, that cop ignored one of the basic rules of police work, i.e., time is on the cop's side. He also didn't take time to think this through. Once the guy is in custody, he no longer has (or should have!) the opportunity to consume any more intoxicant(s). Given that, the officer could (I say should) have posted another officer to stay with the suspect, and the arresting officer should have gone and applied for a search warrant for the blood.

I have never seen an unconscious person brought into an E.R. that did not have blood drawn by the E.R. staff for medical reasons, i.e., find out what is in the blood stream BEFORE they attempt to treat them. Once that blood is drawn, the time it was drawn is part of the record keeping.
The suspect's blood alcohol level is "frozen in time" at that point and there are legally and medically accepted formulas for calculating the blood level at the time of arrest. There is no exigent circumstance that require a warrantless seizure.

As to the arrest of the nurse, IMHO, that was uncalled for. As the article noted, charges were dropped. I would expect a Title 1983 action to follow (Violation of Civil Rights) and the City will have to pay. Hopefully, the officer will too. The hospital should join in as co-plaintiff as they, too, suffered damages by the nurse's arrest. They lost a vital member of the E.R staff and would have to call in someone else to replace her. In the meantime, the E.R. is operating short-staffed.

As to the other officers not stepping in, remember that a fish rots from the head down. If a department has a culture that doesn't allow other officers to step in, it is the citizen's right and responsibility to hold the administrators accountable.
As noted by another poster, the PD belongs to the citizens and THEY are the ones who get to set policy based on the community's needs. It takes work by the citizenry to get this accomplished, but the results are much better for the community than letting the courts set policy, or God forbid, the Attorney General step in with a Consent Decree. Those only serve the attorneys and the bad guys.

And one long lasting condition of this incident will be the distrust of and subtle hostility towards any other officer who comes into the E.R. on business. It's human nature. There a few folks that most cops treat like royalty (or should), those are Dispatchers, Medics, and E.R. personnel. All of them can have a very significant effect on a cop's life. This guy scheit in his own and every other cop in that department's cup.

Just my $0.02

Ed

Cop: I want some blood.

Suspect: Nope.

Sapwhack!

Cop: I want some blood.

Suspect: Zzzzzzzzzzzz

Cop: Cool

Agreed completely.

Was the cop within the letter of the law? Maybe and quite possibly YES. Was it the best way to go about it? ABSOLUTELY not.

LMFAO!

In michigan the hospital draw isn't a "legal" etoh, can't be used as evidence. A second draw (with warrant if patient refuses) is done and the chain of custody is maintained.

Correct the media rarely if ever gets it right.

With that in mind , we can safely say that it is entirely possible that this entire story is "fake news" and never happened .

Bad arrest. The Nurse explained to the Detective all the reasons why she could not let him have the blood and what he needed to do to legally get it. Once the blood is out of the body the BAC is not going to change sitting in a tube. There was an agreement between the PD and the Hospital concerning these how these matters were to be handles and she showed it to the Detective. He copped the attitude of "How Dare this Nurse Question Me". She was legally doing her job and he wasn't. When the higher ranking officer showed up it was obvious he had no idea as to what actually transpired. The Nurse didn't say No, No, No. She made it clear as to the why. The man whose blood they were trying to draw was the Victim. An innocent Victim. The officers had no more right to his blood as they had to his fingerprints.

The Nurse is showing a lot of constraint in the matter. Had it happened to me I would have been suing. You need to know the law if you are going to enforce it. It is obvious to me that none of the officers involved in her actual arrest did. It is Officers like these that give the good guys a bad reputation. My first thought is that I would not want to be him if I got shot and had to go to that ER. But, in actuality it would not matter. In life and death situations you will put aside your differences. Been there and done that.

Jim

Didn't say it was fake news, and certainly didn't say it was entirely fake news. Reading comprehension surely is not one of your strengths

Understood. Too bad, but in that case, the same backwards analysis can be done on the legal draw. Sounds like the Defense Bar was successful in their efforts to further obstruct the evidence gathering.

Ed

I don't think it was always that way in MI? I recall more than a few hospital lab results being used in the past in certain circumstances, but that was decades ago.

Dude is an azzhole anyway you slice it.

What is obvious is this:

The cop isn't used to being told "NO", and he doesn't have the self control to handle that frustration. He's a bully by nature and relishes his power over the public. This particular officer has no business dealing with the public in a position of authority.

I'll bet dollars to dogturds he really wanted to beat the schidt out of the defiant nurse.

I'd like to beat the sheit out of a few people. Does that make me a bad person?