Sign o’ the times

Sometimes it simply isn’t safe to check your Twitter timeline. You see some spooky shit. I’m immune to most of it. There are seven and a half billion people on the planet, each pretty much as crazy as the other, most armed with a smartphone and internet connection to upload their madness for all to see. It is the modern world.

Sideswipe right

This morning I scrolled through my Twitter timeline.

First off, what is it with all these video autoplaying on these social media sites? Twitter does it. Facebook does it. Invariably someone on my timeline will post some inappropriate bullshit that completely sideswipes whatever I was planning to do that day.

Facebook is the worse. Do you ever find yourself clicking into a random click-bait video that automatically played on your timeline? Then it automatically plays the next random video that is as crazy as the last one you watched… then you find yourselves crawling down the rabbit hole of random bullshit videos before you’ve even wiped the cold from your eye? Then you find yourself posting or tweeting about the some random shit going back on your pledge of a few days earlier never again to lose focus and get sidetracked by some random shit again?

Anyway I digress...

Exhibit A

On my Twitter timeline this morning, two retweets caught my eye. The first one looked like a middle-aged man dry-humping his wife out of a hospital reception. I was confused... a little. But not shocked. This was Twitter after all.

It was in fact a retweet of a buzzfeed tweet. A caption came on the the video that explained what was happening:-

Nurse Alex Wubbels was arrested for refusing to let police draw blood from an unconscious patient.

Arrest footage from Salt Lake City hospital, Utah:

I naturally thought that this patient must have been a highly dangerous offender and the police needed some time-critical blood sample. It turns out the patient, Bill Gray was the victim in a car crash. After being chased by police, another man turned into oncoming traffic igniting a fire that killed him and put the Bill, a reserve police officer and a truck driver into critical condition.

Crash footage from Cache County, Utah:

The police (as diligent as they) are wanted to obtain a blood sample from the man. Unless they suspected that the Bill Gray had some mysterious substance in his blood that sucked cars from the opposite side of the road towards him, I’d have thought getting this man’s blood sample would be pretty-fucking-low priority.

Also, the guy is in a critical condition. In a hospital. You're a police officer and you want blood. The nurse is quoting procedure. It doesn’t occur to simply ask, ‘Have you taken any blood sample of the patient?’ Afterall, they do a lot of that in hospitals. When they say undoubtedly say 'Yes'. You say ‘Good. Hold some aside, I’ll get warrant or we'll sort the admin so we can lawfully grab some... given the guy isn’t suspected of committing crime, hasn’t committed a crime and is already having a very shitty day, I don't want to go drawing more blood than necessary.’

Alas that would involve Detective Jeff Payne checking his ego at the hospital door and looking to serve the community not lord over it. Instead, it becomes a ‘them vs us’ standoff. "Them" being those ultra-wicked super-villains masquerading as hospital nurses!

It was interested listening to Detective Payne's words when he arrested Nurse Wubbels, "I said we're done," he said repeatedly. He was simply fed up of listening. It was almost as if he was saying this pesky do-gooding nurse wants to quote hospital policy, when us grown-ups are fighting real crime… maybe a trip to station will give her a reality check. I'd suggest if he has no patience for people, he shouldn't be out on the field with a gun.

I’ve got to say, I feel for Nurse Wubbels. Whether she was mistaken or not, she was just doing her job. She sounded very reasonable in what she was saying and ultimately was just the messenger. If you watch further longer footage, what the officer (and what assume was his superior officer) was saying effectively amounted to;

if a police officer tells you “This is the law. You do what they say, to hell with what you KNOW the law to be.”

In such rationale does tyranny lay. It is also interesting to see the Thin Blue Line in action. None of the other officers or hospital security intervened when they saw Payne doing wrong. The Second Officer in the longer footage tried to explain away his irrational behaviour to Ms Payne. It's disappointing to see the culture of attempting to paper over the cracks of the bad eggs is still alive and well today. It's going to take other Officer's to intervene and check their colleagues when they're being an asshole to stop everyone in the force being tarred with the same brush. I've seen it happen occasionally but it needs to be the norm.

No doubt now this footage has gone viral, action will be taken against those officers involved. Nurse Alex Wubbels (nee Shaffer) may have been the former Olympic skier however Officer Payne is the one who have definitely fallen off a cliff on this one.

Exhibit B

You’d have thought that would be the worse police indiscretion I’d see this morning. Wrong. Take a look at this from footage, which I also came across on Twitter,

Shanghai policeman suspended after his reckless behavior knocks innocent child to the ground

[Contains disturbing images]

I mean what in the hell??? I know being a traffic cop a bum deal. Issuing parking tickets and speeding fines when you'd rather be speeding down the highway chasing bad guys. But slamming a woman to the ground while she is holding a toddler.

Sure the woman was getting a bit rowdy but seriously? What in god’s name is this man doing? I really shouldn’t have to say a word. But I will. It is NOT okay to slam a woman to the ground when she is holding a toddler in one hand. Not unless she is holding a gun or a detonator to a nuclear bomb in the other hand. Not okay. This is wrong on some many levels. The way that child's face hit the concrete. Jeez.

Findings: go driverless

Both of these incidents started with people driving cars and escalated from there. Maybe the answer is to go driverless in the future. I mean, what’s the worse that happen,

Also spotted today... on Twitter... Note to self: Stay off Twitter unless you want to send half of Saturday morning writing about craziness!