Investigators blast Salt Lake City police officers for violent arrest of nurse

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/09/14/investigators-blast-salt-lake-city-police-detective-lieutenant-for-nurses-violent-arrest/

Investigators blast Salt Lake City police officers for violent arrest of nurse
By Derek Hawkins | September 14 at 5:49 AM

Officials in Salt Lake City have released the results of two investigations into the widely publicized arrest of a Utah nurse who refused to draw blood from an unconscious patient — and the conclusions are scathing.

Detective Jeff Payne’s actions were “inappropriate, unreasonable, unwarranted” and “disrespectful” when he manhandled University of Utah Hospital nurse Alex Wubbels and shoved her screaming into a squad car, a probe by the police department’s internal affairs division found. Payne and his supervisor, Lt. James Tracy, violated a slew of ethics rules and other department policies, disgracing the police force, according to the report, which was published Wednesday by the Salt Lake Tribune.

The incident “has brought significant disrepute on both you as a Police Officer and on the Department as a whole,” investigators wrote of the detective. “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 that inspires the requisite trust, respect and confidence.”

Tracy’s actions were also reprehensible, the report found.