Via the mysterious Dr. X comes an interesting lawsuit that touches on the issue of medical professionals performing forensic tests, a subject I recently blogged about. Here’s how Frank Main at the Chicago Sun-Times describes it:
Lisa Hofstra said she was the “charge nurse” in the emergency room on Aug. 1 when the officer approached her at about 4 a.m. The officer requested she perform a blood work-up on a DUI suspect, the lawsuit said.
Hofstra told the officer the suspect needed to be admitted to the hospital before she could draw the person’s blood. Hofstra said she told a police lieutenant that it was the hospital’s protocol to wait until a suspect was admitted, and the lieutenant agreed, she said.
The lieutenant left the emergency room.
Then Hofstra called her supervisors, but before they could respond, the officer put her in handcuffs in front of her co-workers and escorted her to a squad car, according to the lawsuit.
She was then released at the scene, and no charges were ever filed. She says the handcuffs were too tight and she received injuries which were treated at the emergency room.
Hofstra’s complaint against Officer Rodriguez and the city of Chicago includes Section 1983 claims of excessive force, federal and state claims of false arrest, and a state claim for battery.
I don’t know any more than this, but clearly something crazy happened here. What kind of nutball cop disrupts the operation of a hospital emergency room by dragging away the triage nurse for no good reason?
There seems to be something missing from this story, however. I doubt that even the craziest nutball cops do things like this (very often) to people who are courteous and polite. My guess is that Nurse Hofstra “mouthed off” or committed some other imagined offense that cops like to interpret as a crime. Triage nurses have to be decisive and firm with demanding people, so perhaps she was a bit brusque in her dealings with officer Rodriguez.
She disrespected his authoritah, and he decided to teach her a lesson. Now her lawyers are going to teach him one.
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