A man was brought to our hospital while unresponsive. He was a possible drug overdose case. When one of the technicians was stripping his clothes off, he found a baggie containing almost 100 grams of what looked like crystal meth in the patient’s pocket. The technician turned it over to the charge nurse, who immediately called the local gendarmes.
By the time a cop arrived, the patient was awake and denied that the drugs were his. The police took photos, fingerprints, and ID from the technician and the charge nurse. According to the cops, since the the nurse and technician admitted to having possession and control of the drugs, they just admitted to felony possession of methamphetamines with intent to distribute.
Since the two voluntarily called the cops, they said that no arrest would be made on the spot, but claimed that they will be turning the information and evidence over to the State’s attorney for possible prosecution.
There is an important lesson there: Don’t fucking talk to the cops, no matter what. They aren’t your friends. They aren’t there to help you. They are there to make a case to arrest someone, and they will get the arrest that requires them to do the least amount of work they can. They get to pad their stats and look good for getting a felony collar without having to do any police work at all.
The tech told me that if there is a next time, he is flushing that shit down the toilet.
Congratulations, cops. You just pissed off an entire ED full of the doctors and nurses you depend on every day, turning them from coworkers of a sort into a department full of people that no longer like or trust cops. Even if the charges don’t stick, people remember stuff like that. Nice move, idiots.
19 Comments
matthew W · February 18, 2023 at 2:10 pm
WOW !!!
That is such bullshit.
Hopefully cooler heads prevail.
Greg Ellifritz · February 18, 2023 at 2:59 pm
Not making any excuses for the cops. I wasn’t there, so I’ll believe your explanation. With that said, there might be another reason for the fingerprints and photos.
In order to get evidence that the patient was in possession of the drugs, detectives would likely fingerprint the bag. Knowing that the two hospital staff members handled the bag, they would need their fingerprints to exclude them from any they find on the bag.
They are also witnesses to the crime and will need to testify if the case goes to trial. Getting their ID info for the report ensures that the prosecutor can send them a subpeona if necessary.
Your advice is still sound. Avoid all hassles. Just put the item back in the patient’s clothing and let him keep it when he gets out. If you flush the drugs, he could allege that you stole something from him. Of course he will say that the bag contained some legal substance if he contacts the police.
EN2 SS · February 18, 2023 at 9:39 pm
I ain’t in the medical field, but I’ve been treated by medical people in hospital ERs and I don’t remember anyone in the ER that didn’t have on rubber gloves when handling a patient. Even a nice/sweet/obviously respectable pillar of the community like me. What fingerprints do you know of that print through rubber/nitrile gloves?
Anonymous · February 19, 2023 at 11:55 pm
If you get any oil on the outside of those thin gloves, your prints print. Try it. Then think about all the cases you have thumbprints on from loading mags.
nones nones@nones.com · February 18, 2023 at 3:36 pm
Don’t ever let police into your home. If questioned by police, shut the fuck up and get a lawyer.
Francis W. Porretto · February 18, 2023 at 3:40 pm
It’s a remarkable, deplorable thing, but today the greatest impediment to actual justice is the “justice system.” The police are untrustworthy; the prosecutors are unscrupulous; and the judges, all the way up the appellate chain, think they’re black-robed gods. There was better justice from the vigilance committees, which came into existence for the same reasons.
DBH · February 20, 2023 at 9:28 am
The “Justice System” is now a Punishment System since the process IS the punishment.
I haven’t had much interaction with it, but even I’ve seen police and judges ignore the law when they feel like it.
A couple of years ago i was on the grand jury of a small rural county; in that state all potential felony cases have to go through the grand jury. One of the cases was a retired (female) judge. I don’t remember the details.
The important part is that she was rude, arrogant, condescending, and acted like she was still a judge, in HER courtroom and we were people daring to question her pronouncements. I later heard that she was VERY irritated that we didn’t approve her request for a felony indictment. (the current DA didn’t support it, but felt he had to allow her to make her case to us).
P.S. Not using my usual name for this!
joe · February 18, 2023 at 3:53 pm
not sure how they had pc to do any of that…florida must have some fucked up laws…i would have told them to eat a bag of dicks…
Divemedic · February 19, 2023 at 8:27 am
Maybe the lack of PC is why there was no arrest.
GuardDuck · February 18, 2023 at 3:55 pm
Had a similar situation year back with a local PD. We had a security contract for bouncers and doormen at a local club. One of my guys pulled some drug type stuff off a dood after arresting him for assault.
Local PD got all up on my guy for possession. That was the end of cooperation with that PD. To the extent that we pulled operations out of their podunk town. Even arrested one of their jerk officers at a different club in different town. Did that one with a smile.
Anonymous Coward · February 18, 2023 at 4:17 pm
Cops; not the sharpest tool in the shed. Kidding aside, though, the vast majority of the “thin blue line” are low grade morons, just like every other government employee that you will ever run across. YMMV, but I suggest that you avoid all of them at all costs.
Don Curton · February 18, 2023 at 4:47 pm
While shocking, I can completely believe it. From Broward County to Uvaldi School District to the cops who told my wife they wouldn’t file a accident report after her car wreck cause the insurance companies would “handle that” and “she wouldn’t lose anything” cause insurance would fix her car, cops always take the easiest way out. My neighbor is a cop, nicest most friendly guy you’d ever meet, but if I saw him in uniform I’d still say nothing. Thin blue line my dying ass.
Danny · February 18, 2023 at 7:38 pm
Ever since the local LEO shook me down in my own driveway in the late 80s, I’ve had little to no respect for any of them. It was somebody with my same last name they had a APB on. They were waiting when I pulled in to my home after taking my wife an two kids out for dinner. Assholes — complete assholes. One guy flanking us up the side of the house. That’s all I better say on the subject.
Big Ruckus D · February 18, 2023 at 9:50 pm
How many normal, decent people need to get screwed over like this before the near universal public opinion is:
Fuck the police
With a rusty chainsaw.
Sideways.
Oh, but they’re just doing their job to the letter of the law.
I’ve had but a handful of official interactions with cops in my life, none all that intrusive even, but I still don’t trust them for shit, because I know how quickly it can go bad when they are nosing around.
Bad Dancer · February 19, 2023 at 8:16 am
That seems silly bordering on malicious on the part of the cops.
As you said way to make enemies or at least not friends and boy will that story hve legs.
The rule at the doc in a box when I was policing the hospital would throw any found illegal drugs into the medicine disposal boxes oooorrrrr share it out. Not my football team, not my felons.
Anonymous · February 19, 2023 at 11:12 am
If you think the police are bad, wait until you have to deal with a state’s attorney/prosecutor.
I recently served on a jury for a criminal trial that probably should never have been brought to trial. The state’s attorney was seeking a felony conviction for what was basically a disagreement between two drunk college students that escalated into a pushing and shouting match.
As a law school student, I spent a summer working in a Public Defender’s office, and got to see exactly how the police chose to behave and interact with the public (and admittedly, some of the lower tiers of the public). After that, I focused my legal career on transactional law, not litigation. But I learned my lesson about law enforcement and prosecutors.
Minimize your interactions with law enforcement as much as you can. No good comes of it.
TRX · February 19, 2023 at 9:56 pm
A friend of mine used to work as a tech in a computer store. They sold a new computer to someone who wanted all of his old files and programs moved to the new one. While copying the data he noticed some peculiar filenames, clicked on a couple, and found the computer was full of kiddie porn. He called his supervisor and reported it, they took the machine away, and he thought that was it.
He wound up being interrogated by the local city police and prosecutor’s office five times, three of them on video, a couple of the sessions lasting more than two hours, going over and over “this is what I saw, and then I turned it all over to my supervisor.” *Eight years* later, while working as a long-haul trucker, he got a phone call from the DA’s office wanting to know why he hadn’t responded to their written notice to show up for yet another deposition. He told them it might have been because he hadn’t been home for six weeks. They told him they’d issue a warrant for his arrest if he didn’t present himself at their office within 24 hours. He asked if they were going to send him a round-trip airplane ticket since he was 2500 miles away. They blustered a while longer, then ended the call.
Some months after that he got another call, same basic thing. That time he told them he had no memory whatsoever of the events. They didn’t press any further. and he never heard from them again.
I was fairly impressed the pedo’s lawyer managed to drag it out for more than eight years. We never figured out what Yet Another Deposition was such a big deal, but apparently they dropped the charges after that.
Aesop · February 20, 2023 at 1:03 pm
Douchebadges who pull shit like this are how anonymous letters show up in the chief’s office, letting that agency know that any officer coming to that ER with a custodial patient needing medical clearance or treatment might be waiting a minimum of 6 hours to be seen, even if it’s the only patient in the ED, and that any officer coming to that ER for treatment has a piss poor prognosis, for anything down to a blister. And it might take 5 or 10 tries to get a vein for an IV or blood draw.
The fucktards who pull the shit described invariably end up writing traffic tickets on the midnight shift in the shittiest part of town for two years as penance, and about 90% of that department tends to offer their profuse personal apologies for the egregious behavior of Officers Shithead and Fuckstick, at least one of whom suddenly decides to transfer to an agency ten counties away, and is never heard of again.
Generally, one of the docs is, or knows the guys who are, the medical directors for any number of local SWAT teams as well, and or on a first name basis with the local D.A. A few choice words in the right ears, and that problem gets handled. And I’m talking in the old Irish cop sense of that word.
I work with people who have the business cards of no less than two chiefs and four deputy chiefs sitting on their office corkboard, along with any number of brass and management – sergeants to captains and commanders – from other local agencies, the county sheriffs, and CA’s version of state police, the CHP. From taking care of their officers when they crash, or get shot, or otherwise injured. They know who their friends are when it matters to them, and they tend not to be happy about one or more of their underlings who have shat in the community well.
After 25 years in four major trauma center EDs and two dozen lesser ones, ask me how I know how this goes down in the second round.
OT, but say, what ever happened to the badgehole who lost his mind, and roughed up one ED nurse in SLC, and made the national news…??? Where does he work now…? Burger King? Or KFC?
The Increasingly Stupid Police Downgrade. – Gun Free Zone · February 18, 2023 at 6:55 pm
[…] If you see something, keep it to yourself […]
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