When Police and Hospital Staff Collide

Guest: Teneille Brown, JD, Professor of Law, University of Utah The incident took place at the end of July, but police body cam video released on Friday turned it into a national story. In it, you see a nurse in the burn unit at the University of Utah hospital in Salt Lake City explaining to a police officer that she can’t let him draw blood from an unconscious patient who was involved in a fatal traffic accident. The nurse has a supervisor on speakerphone helping her explain the hospital policy, but the police officer isn’t satisfied. Moments later he grabs the nurse roughly and puts her in handcuffs as she screams for help.  Salt Lake City’s mayor and chief of police issued apologies after the video went viral. The police officer in the video has been placed on administrative leave and hospital staff say they’ve changed their policies: nurses will no longer be allowed to interact with law enforcement agents. There are still a lot of legal questions surrounding this incident.