SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the in-soviet-russia-you-pay-nurse dept.
NPR reports a nurse in Utah who was arrested on July 26th in Utah has reached a $500,000 settlement with the city and hospital system. Nurse Alex Wubbels was arrested by Detective Jeff Payne for refusing to take a blood sample from a patient without the patient's consent or a warrant. When she tried to present the detective with the hospital policy on the subject, the Detective announced she was under arrest and took her away in handcuffs. The Detective has since been fired after it was initially reported that he was "counseled."
At the beginning of the [body camera] video, she is seen calmly reading the officer the hospital's policy not to allow blood to be drawn without a warrant or the patient's consent, unless the patient is under arrest. "This is something you guys agreed to with this hospital," she explains. Then the officer lunges at Wubbels, forces her outside and handcuffs her as she screams that she has done nothing wrong. The footage drew widespread outrage when it was released by the nurse and her attorney. It became part of a broader conversation about police use of force.
The Washington Post reported, "Wubbels said she will donate some of the proceeds to a fund that will help people obtain body camera footage and provide free legal aid for open records requests. She is also planning to use the money to raise awareness about workplace violence against nurses." Alex Wubbels, in a guest blog post at the American Nurses Association, describes the campaign as #EndNurseAbuse. Workplace violence against nurses is not something covered that often outside the profession, and yet something every ER worker knows about. Usually, though, it isn't the police who are the perpetrators.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bradley13 on Thursday November 02 2017, @06:26AM (19 children)
While she certainly deserved something, half-a-million is far too much. Seriously, a few thousand would be much more appropriate.
At the same time, the people responsible are paying too little. Specifically: zero. The two officers won't pay it. Their bosses, who set departmental policy, won't pay it. It will be paid by the city, probably out of general funds, so even the police department won't pay it.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @06:47AM (3 children)
bradley12, in my humble opinion, is paid too much. Paid too much for his job. Paid too much for that accident he was involved in. Paid too much for the fundamental violation of his human rights, when he was raped and forced to sign a NDA by some Twentynine year olds at some start-up in Belgium!! Pay it back, Bradley, of indeterminate number! Pay it back, you hoser!
(Score: 0, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @06:58AM (2 children)
And bradley13 is paid an increment more than bradley12, so it is even worse! Please, all you bradleys, return your unearned income back to the common pool of society at large. Otherwise, we may have to like sue your asses.
(Score: 4, Funny) by c0lo on Thursday November 02 2017, @08:26AM (1 child)
Letting aside the discrimination against bradleys, why would the society have to contribute to unearned income of all the others non-bradleys?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday November 02 2017, @05:17PM
Nobody said the money was contributing "unearned income of all the others non-bradleys". You see, I have a friend named Bill, and a bridge that needs repairs, and if Bill repairs the bridge, then Bill has enough money to help me get re-elected, so I can find another bridge for Bill to repair with Bradleys' money...
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @08:09AM (1 child)
Keep in mind, this is the USA. So that payout is taxable income. And if she fails to file her taxes properly, it's straight to jail.
The real award is closer to $300k after taxes.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Bobs on Thursday November 02 2017, @06:54PM
Actually: this is the USA, Mofo!
The lawyers get 33%!
Then the taxes get another third, so she is probably collecting around $200k
(Score: 5, Informative) by RedBear on Thursday November 02 2017, @10:21AM (1 child)
These kinds of settlement figures are far less about compensating an individual (hard to put a price on that in most circumstances) and much more about attempting to penalize a powerful organization like the city government to put pressure on their employees to behave better. In that sense I believe half a million is a joke. If they were hit with a ten million settlement cost for the unlawful abuse of authority by their employees (the two police officers directly involved in the decisions that led to the false arrest), they would be far more likely to direct the people in charge of the police department to condition their employees to avoid such illegal authoritarian behavior. Cities make endless small settlements like this without ever being successfully prompted to modify their behavior.
Let us remember that this was pure abuse of authority and false arrest. If I understood the circumstances correctly the unconscious patient who had been in an accident was a former police officer, and the cop at the hospital was trying to obtain evidence to be used in the patient's defense. He and his lieutenant were willing to violate the law to protect a fellow (former) "boy in blue", and the nurse was falsely detained for standing up for the patient's civil rights as proscribed by both law and hospital policy. That is just as much corruption as illegally obtaining or fabricating evidence to attempt to convict someone, and should be very strongly discouraged by our justice system. Every time the police are exposed as believing they are above the law we should come down on them like a ton of bricks. A half-million settlement is more like a slap on the wrist, and the police department won't even notice.
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @04:12PM
So when will the offending cops be prosecuted for the crimes they did?
That'll be more effective than taking money from various departments and organizations.
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Thursday November 02 2017, @12:51PM (2 children)
I disagree. She was pressured into doing something highly illegal to the point of handcuffing her and leaving her in a police car for 20 minutes. If she had buckled under to the pressure, she might have lost her job. And nobody did anything [nytimes.com] about it until her video ended up on the internet a month later.
[...]
[...]
[...]
Notice all these actions happened the week after the public release of the video. So we had this egregious abuse of police power, complete with witnesses and video, yet nothing happened until she put the video on the internet.
It's not just the abuse of power. It's not just her job that was at stake. It was also that we have good indications that the authorities were going to sweep this under the rug and ignore the problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @02:03PM (1 child)
Because telling cops they are barred from an area will always keep them out.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday November 03 2017, @12:25AM
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Thursday November 02 2017, @02:04PM (3 children)
I'll tell you what is too much and too little. Police departments and individual officers are still not getting the message after years of being in the public eye and poisoning the public trust.
Therefore the award is FAR too small. The judgements need to get much bigger until police departments get the message and start pro-actively doing something. Otherwise, you can expect this situation to continue getting worse and worse. (Which is what I actually expect is going to happen. I don't want to go there, so I won't go on with the depressing prediction of where we'll end up.)
Police need to get thicker skin. Someone flipping them off is an opinion. An opinion created by how bad police officers have poisoned the public trust. The other police officers need to own that and stop standing behind bad officers. It won't get fixed until that happens.
Police need to stop trying to escalate situations and think for a second before they act.
Examples from many public videos:
* arresting a lawyer for standing up for her client, the arrest is for "resisting arrest"
* asking what you are being pulled over for should not constitute a reason for arrest
* people standing up for their rights should be respected -- people should not even have to take such an active stand for their rights
* people's rights should be respected AS THE DEFAULT
Thus, I have reluctantly formed an opinion that something needs to be done. Much larger judgements might help send a message. Another is that police officers should have to carry their own individual liability insurance -- even if subsidized by the department. Just like other professions have to carry individual liability insurance. But bad cops wouldn't be able to get insurance, the insurance underwriters would have motive to investigate bad officers, and the police unions and police departments would be powerless to affect the insurance underwriters.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @04:23PM (2 children)
I disagree. The award is not too small, it seems enough to compensate the victim.
BUT what must be done to reduce future victims is prosecuting the cops for their crimes. And no half-hearted bullshit about it. Not bigger awards.
I don't get why people are so keen on huge fines to "the group" when they can just throw the culprits in prison. All this "big fines to the org" are the reason why bad CEOs and cops keep doing evil stuff. Nothing really significant happens to them. The more sociopathic or evil they are the less it matters to them that the group suffers. Yeah they get yelled at, or they lose their jobs and end up working for a different Police Department/Company, big fucking deal.
When you start throwing cops and CEOs in prison then you will see the rest change their behavior more quickly.
Prison is a greater deterrent to cops and CEOs than to normal crooks.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday November 02 2017, @05:27PM
I'm not thinking bigger awards. I'm thinking bigger judgements. The victim does need to be compensated. But I'm thinking of what is called "punitive damages". That is, a financial judgement intended to punish and send a message. And it is a real thing. It should be done -- especially if a police department knew or should have known that they have some bad cops.
I would be fine with throwing the bad cops in prison. But that just doesn't seem to happen. In some cases, the department takes little to no action, or even actively tries to cover up the crimes of their officers.
I strongly agree that prison is a bigger deterrent. But it seldom seems to happen except in the most extreme cases. And even those are very difficult to prosecute against (gasp!) an upstanding police officer who has served for years with the department, or with many different police departments. Thus I'm looking at other potential solutions that might get the department to take real action. Prison is a deterrent to the individual. I'm thinking of deterrents for the department as well. The two are not mutually exclusive either.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @05:30PM
Bigger fines may be achievable and, if big enough, may get their superiors to lean on the bad cops.
To throw bad cops in jail however, you have to depend on other cops to throw them. Ain't gonna happen. "Thin blue line" and "bro's stand together" and all that other gang loyalty bullshit.
(Score: 3, Informative) by requerdanos on Thursday November 02 2017, @02:46PM (2 children)
This is an enormous injustice. These people should pay out of their pockets, invoking the otherwise evil asset forfeiture laws if necessary to make it happen. They should also be in prison for conspiracy to commit assault and kidnapping, both of which were perpetrated against the titular nurse in TFA.
Those in authority should be held to a more rigorous standard. They are not. This is a problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @05:25PM (1 child)
Holding then to the same standard as anyone else would probably be sufficient. I mean, imagine normal people would handcuff a nurse and take her with them after she refused to do something illegal on their demand. I'm sure they would get a harsh punishment.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Thursday November 02 2017, @05:45PM
I would hope so. That's assault and kidnapping. I.e. what the perpetrator involved here did to the nurse. A perpetrator who was not arrested, not charged, not fined, not penalized in any way, except for the minor inconvenience of having to change jobs, and people seeing the video and finding out about his personal problems and propensity to commit violent criminal acts against the innocent.
(Score: 2) by aclarke on Thursday November 02 2017, @04:22PM
Yeah, I agree. I think she should get something, and I'm happy to see she's planning on donating some of it at least. I'd rather have seen the payout to be $1-2M, paid by people other than taxpayers, with the nurse getting maybe $200k and the rest going to human rights organizations, police watch groups, etc. Then the money hurts bad cops twice; once on the payout, and then it gets used to keep them accountable.