Justice has been partly served in Utah. The Salt Lake City police chief, Mike Brown, announced that Det. Jeff Payne – the cop who violently dragged a nurse out of a hospital for doing her job – has finally been fired.
“Your conduct toward Ms. Wubbels in this incident was inappropriate, unreasonable, unwarranted, discourteous, disrespectful, and has brought significant disrepute on both you as a Police Officer and on the Department as a whole,” Brown wrote in a statement. “You demonstrated extremely poor professional judgment (especially for an officer with 27 years of experience) which calls into question your ability to effectively serve the public and the Department in a manner which inspires the requisite trust, respect, and confidence.”
Hospital surveillance footage, along with the police body camera footage, – the latter might have been edited to protect Payne – from July 26th, show the Salt Lake City police officer arguing with University Hospital nurse, Alex Wubbels, over her reluctance to draw blood from an unconscious patient. Payne didn’t have an electronic warrant to do so, nor did he have the patient’s consent, and was not under arrest. Without any of these conditions met, Wubbels was legally unable to comply with the officer’s request.
As expected, officer Payne got extremely upset and was unable to handle the situation professionally. He went into a fit of rage and violently grabbed the nurse, physically removing her from the building amidst screams of pain from her. Wubbels’ colleagues, who were trying to de-escalate the situation, along with Payne’s violent temper, were noticeably confused.
Payne told Wubbels to provide him with a blood sample of the surviving victim of a fatal crash, who just so happened to be a reserve officer. After speaking to the hospital administrators, however, Wubbels informed Payne of the requirements he needed to meet to draw blood from the patient. Unable to deal with opposition, and clouded by his power drive, Payne screamed at Wubbels, telling her she was obstructing justice. He proceeded to handcuff the terrified woman.
Wubbels was, of course, never charged with a crime. As a matter of fact, the crime would have been to comply to Payne’s corrupt demands. She and her lawyer released the video footage last month, and it was clear that she had not done anything wrong.
“Quite frankly, had you not had any video, it would have been he said, she said,” Wubbels told Buzzfeed. “The body cameras help everyone. They tell the truth.”
https://twitter.com/KarraPorter/status/917912470190096384
This article was inspired by BuzzFeed//The Police Officer Who Dragged A Nurse Out Of A Hospital For Not Drawing Blood Has Been Fired