Utah Nurse Wants Officers Reeducated Following Arrest

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MIAMI (CBSMiami) – New details have emerged following a Utah nurse being arrested for simply trying to do her job.

She denied a police officer's request to draw blood from a patient because the officer didn't have the legal means to make the request.

Now she wants officers to have more training.

The Salt Lake City Police Department is facing criticism for its conduct in the video, which was released by Nurse Alex Wubbels' attorneys.

The footage has resulted in a public apology from Salt Lake City's police chief and a criminal investigation by the DA's office.

A body camera captured the moment Wubbels was arrested in the burn unit at the University of Utah hospital.

She was handcuffed after she refused to let police draw blood from an unconscious man in the emergency room.

"It's so blatantly obvious what was right and what was wrong," Wubbels said. "And I was not wrong."

The victim, an Idaho reserve police officer who works as a truck driver, had been brought in after being involved in a fiery car crash on July 26th near Salt Lake City.

Officer Jeff Payne's written report said he wanted to take a blood sample to show the victim did nothing wrong.

Wubbels explained to Payne that it was against hospital policy to take blood as evidence from an unconscious patient without a warrant or an arrest.

She put her supervisor on speaker phone, who told Payne, "you're making a huge mistake because you're threatening a nurse."

That's when things escalated.

Wubbels was detained for about twenty minutes before being released.

"I was alarmed by what I saw in the video," said Salt Lake City police chief Mike Brown.

The department is conducting an internal investigation and has changed its blood draw policy.

"I wanna just continue the conversation," Wubbels said. "We need reeducation and I will be waiting to hear what Chief Brown decides should be done with his employees."

Over the weekend, around a hundred people gathered outside police headquarters to voice their outrage.

Wubbels says if she had to, she would take the same action again.

"I mean my co-workers would've done the exact same thing," she said. "This is what we do. This is our profession."

Wubbles was released without charges. For now she isn't filing a lawsuit.

As for Detective Payne and another officer, they are on full administrative leave pending criminal investigation.