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FBI Tapped To Investigate Wubbels Incident; Chief Brown Says Department Has 'Black Eye'

Nurse Alex Wubbels in a frame grab from her arrest on July 27. The FBI has not been asked to assist the investigation into the incident, which has drawn widespread scrutiny.

The FBI has been called in to help the Salt Lake County District Attorney in the case of the police officer who arrested a University Hospital nurse on July 26. 

D.A. Sim Gill says the FBI is uniquely qualified to investigate some issues, including possible civil rights violations.

"So we simply asked our FBI partners to reach in and take a look at that," he says. 

Gill's department is focusing on crimes that might have been committed. And two other investigations are underway over the arrest of nurse Alex Wubbels.

Salt Lake Police Chief Mike Brown says his department’s reputation has taken a big hit since the video's release.

"We got a black eye," he says. "I think that’s what hurts so bad is we’ve worked so hard for the last couple years through our training and outreach and everything we’ve done to kind of take this on this chin. Look, we’ll take it. We’ll make it better. But it hurts.”
 
 

Brown says he’s taking measures to make sure it doesn’t happen again. An internal affairs investigation is underway and they're following updated policies for how police interact with emergency rooms personnel. 
 
Brown maintains the incident was an "outlier," and not indicative of more systemic problems in the department. 

Julia joined KUER in 2016 after a year reporting at the NPR member station in Reno, Nev. During her stint, she covered battleground politics, school overcrowding, and any story that would take her to the crystal blue shores of Lake Tahoe. Her work earned her two regional Edward R. Murrow awards. Originally from the mountains of Western North Carolina, Julia graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2008 with a degree in journalism. She’s worked as both a print and radio reporter in several states and several countries — from the 2008 Beijing Olympics to Dakar, Senegal. Her curiosity about the American West led her to take a spontaneous, one-way road trip to the Great Basin, where she intends to continue preaching the gospel of community journalism, public radio and podcasting. In her spare time, you’ll find her hanging with her beagle Bodhi, taking pictures of her food and watching Patrick Swayze movies.
Bob Nelson is a graduate of the University of Utah with a BA in mass communications. He began his radio career at KUER in 1978 when it was still in Kingsbury Hall. That’s also where he met his wife, Maria Shilaos, in 1981. Bob left KUER for commercial radio where he worked for 25 years, and he is thrilled to be back at KUER. Bob and his family are part of an explorer group, fondly known as The Hordes and Masses, which has been seeking out ghost towns and little-known places in Utah for more than twenty years.
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