SALT LAKE CITY -- The videos showing a police officer arresting nurse Alex Wubbels after she refused to allow him to draw blood from an unconscious patient is prompting new legislation.
"What we saw on the video -- certainly myself included -- infuriated so many people," said Rep. Craig Hall, R-West Valley City.
He has opened a bill file to run legislation dealing with police authority on blood draws. In an interview with FOX 13 on Thursday, Rep. Hall said he wanted to ensure what happened to Wubbels does not happen again.
"We’re looking at policies, we’re looking at current code. We’re looking at U.S. Supreme Court case law and Utah Supreme Court case law to determine what is and is not appropriate," he said.
Video shows University of Utah nurse Alex Wubbels being taken into custody by Salt Lake City Police. July 26, 2017
Police body cam and hospital surveillance cameras show Salt Lake City Police Detective Jeff Payne arresting Wubbels after she refused to allow him to draw blood from an unconscious patient involved in a car crash. That patient remains in critical condition as of this week.
On the video, she informs him that it violates hospital policies, which require a judge's order or patient consent. Payne arrested her and put her in a squad car before releasing her without charges.
Salt Lake City has said its own policies were not followed. Payne and a supervisor remain on leave pending other investigations.
Rep. Hall said police policies may get included in his legislation. He said he wants to ensure they're legally accurate and consistent amongst Utah's law enforcement agencies.
"I encourage any legislation designed to prevent this type of thing from happening again. Unfortunately, given that existing laws already expressly prohibited what these officers were doing, I'm skeptical as to whether it would change their behavior," Karra Porter, Wubbels' attorney, told FOX 13 in an email.
"I hope someone runs legislation designed to expand the use of body cameras by law-enforcement. If it hadn't been for body cam footage, this would've been a 'she said/they said' situation, as is too often the case. Even people Alex knew did not fully understand or believe what she was describing until they saw it themselves."
Watch the body cam video here:
Rep. Hall said the Utah State Legislature's Interim Judiciary Committee hopes to have a bill to review by November, with a bill ready to run for the 2018 session that begins in January.
"We’re not sure where we want to go, but we do want to make sure that this doesn’t happen again," he said.
