You don’t just have to take Sams word, what he speaks is the truth. The driver of a commercial vehicle does give up some rights that are given to the average driver. One right I can think of is that a commercial driver cannot refuse to have his vehicle searched by an officer of the law.
Well, I don’t know a ton about police procedures of course, but from the Salt Lake City PD’s list of procedures (p.161 onward) it seems that traffic violations are never really considered a valid justification for pursuit. The police were alerted to this man based on reports of him driving erratically… now maybe this type of dangerous driving qualifies as potential “vehicular homicide” and that’s why they felt justified in pursuing the suspect, but on first read they should not have been pursuing in this manner. I’m not an expert of course, could totally be wrong about this.
Forcible felonies such as robbery, rape, aggravated
burglary, where a weapon was used or assault has
occurred, homicide, or attempted homicide,
kidnapping, aggravated assault or warrants for any of
the listed offenses MAY justify a pursuit if the suspect
poses an imminent danger if not apprehended
immediately.
Traffic, misdemeanor, non-forcible felony violations
and property crimes DO NOT warrant pursuit under
any circumstances. A warrant for Automobile
Homicide, which stems from a DUI related traffic
accident, will not, by itself, be grounds for a pursuit.
This type of warrant will, for the purposes of this
policy, be considered a traffic warrant.
Also, even if the case technically justifies the pursuit, the officers are requires to weigh public safety and other critical concerns, and are not exempt from legal consequences if they fail to do so:
State law does not relieve the driver of an
authorized emergency vehicle from the duty to drive
with due regard for the safety of all persons, nor does
the law protect the driver from the consequences of an
arbitrary exercise of these privileges.
http://www.slcdocs.com/police/ppm.pdf
Anyways, I’m not saying that these officers definitely did something wrong in the first place, but it had to have crossed their mind that they screwed up royally.
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Unfortunately a guy i went to high school with got drunk and got behind the wheel… ran his car into a parked log truck and died in the process. The guy who parked the log truck there several days prior ultimately was cleared of all charges when he passed the drug test.
decisions of that gravity have to go way up the chain of command, causing more questions to be asked and alternatives weighed generally-- whereas what at the moment what probably seemed like a trivial matter of a nurse obstructing justice (falsely presented to the supervisor) perhaps seemed like a rubber stamp it and move on to next issue situation… I suspect they’d put a little more thought into it in hindsight. It will be interesting to see. Also will be interesting to see how the commercial vehicle thing works its way into the departments justification…
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Because it’s her job. End of story.
As a medical professional, confidentiality and patient rights are of utmost importance. I don’t care who is asking for what—it’s often super clear what the rules are in situations like these, and it seems like it was for her too. It’s her job to protect her patient, not to help the police. The minute medical professionals start bending privacy rules because it seems like the right thing to do (and because the police can’t be bothered to go through proper channels), then privacy rules mean nothing. We all should be so lucky to have that quality of nurse when we need one.
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I read the same thing. If that is true, and if he did not misinform his boss, the police lieutenant should be the one on the firing line.
I am so with you on this. I am really proud of this nurse. Resisting the police is not easy for most anyone.
Sometimes too hard imho. I used to be 100% of the time on the side of law and order, because I could not believe that sworn police officers would lie.
After having seen so much evidence on youtube I can’t believe how wrong and naive I was. The amount of documented police misconduct is staggering to me.
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Looks like the hospital has changed its policy as a result of this confrontation – basically, any police officers now will have to interact with hospital officials for these requests, and will have no access to the floors or staff on the wards. That means nurses can do their jobs without having to deal with these situations.
Also apparently this guy was moonlighting as a paramedic too – you have to wonder about his ethics in other situations – would he have taken samples from people in his ambulances without consent?
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Not sure how significant It really is. There are pretty good safeguards in place to ensure that if any sorts of lab samples weren’t properly and legally obtained to begin with including proper chain of custody they’d never be admissible in any sort of legal proceedings… or at least the movie ‘Flight’ would have me believe that…
The bigger issue imo is his abuse of his position of power…
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While the testing data itself wouldn’t have been admissible, the ability to test on your own is a significant advantage. For instance if they found a positive, they could then ask for blood, that was taken for other reasons and stored, be run for drugs.
It amounts to an illegal search, and should be, well illegal until we change the laws.
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I am familiar with and I will bet Sam is familiar with what is proper chain of custody. I believe we are both subject to DOT regulations. Without that documented chain of custody any sample of any kind is useless. No action can ever be taken against anyone if the chain is broken.
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