A man is accused of assaulting a security officer at Southwest Memorial Hospital while being escorted off hospital grounds.
Cortez police officer Karla Ross was dispatched to the hospital on Aug. 8 at around 2:05 p.m. When she arrived at the ICU area parking lot, Ross met with Adrian Swank, who works in maintenance and security at the hospital.
Swank told Ross that the suspect, identified as Brian Chee, hadn’t left hospital grounds after being discharged from the emergency room and had been “uncooperative” while there, giving nurses “a hard time.”
Chee reportedly waited outside the hospital on a bench near the emergency room entrance for around eight hours, but no one came to pick him up.
After more time passed and Chee didn’t leave, Swank and Thomas Comisky, who also works in maintenance and security at the hospital, attempted to escort Chee off the hospital’s property. As they walked, Chee allegedly punched Swank in the mouth, causing the inside of his lip to bleed.
Swank ranked the pain of the punch as a five out of 10, according to Ross. Swank asked to press assault charges, saying his lip still hurt.
Comisky told police they tried to get Chee off the property after the punch, but he refused to leave. Ross attempted to speak with Chee, but she said he was “nonverbal and would not answer any questions I would ask of him.”
After putting Chee in her patrol vehicle, Ross spoke with emergency room nurses, who said Chee had been brought to the hospital the night before via ambulance and was “uncooperative the entire night.” They tried to contact his family about picking him up, but were told he was “an adult and on his own now.”
Comisky and Swank were asked to remove Chee off the property after he allegedly kept bothering other patients going in and out of the ER, according to police.
Chee was booked in the Montezuma County Jail for 3rd degree assault. It took three detention deputies to hold him up and escort him into the jail, according to Ross.
