After Assaulting Nurse, Salt Lake City Detective Threatened to Inundate Hospital with ‘Transients’

As if assaulting a nurse simply doing her job wasn’t despicable enough, additional body cam footage shows Salt Lake City Detective Jeff Payne telling other officers he’ll “bring them [the hospital] all the transients and take good patients elsewhere.”

The footage, obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune, was recorded after Payne attacked and arrested University of Utah Hospital nurse Alex Wubbels on July 26 because she refused to allow the detective, who also is a paramedic, to draw blood from an unconscious patient. That patient was the victim of a head–on collision following a police chase of another driver. Police are not allowed to draw blood from the hospitalized victim without a warrant or consent.

According to the Tribune, Payne works a second job as a paramedic for Gold Cross Ambulance.

The body camera footage provides interesting insight into the types of internal conversations that happen between police officers when something like this occurs. In the recorded conversation, Payne makes the already awful situation worse, which likely will raise further questions about his conduct in an ongoing internal police investigation. Now, he also faces an internal investigation at Gold Cross, the company’s president Mike Moffitt told the newspaper.

In the recording, another officer is heard questioning whether Wubbels committed obstruction of justice, and whether her arrest will stick.

Before making his peevish comment about “transients,” a word often used to disparage homeless people, Payne rightfully expresses concern about his employment as a paramedic.

“Wonder how this will affect my Gold Cross job,” he said.

Payne and a second, unidentified officer were placed on paid administrative leave after the video of Wubbels’ arrest went viral, the Salt Lake City police department said on Friday.

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