UPDATE: Cops Pull Gun on Speeder – Guess Who Stepped Out of the Car?

Police from across the Des Moines metro area chased — then pulled a gun on — a West Des Moines physician who was responding to an early morning emergency call Saturday.

When police approached the SUV driven by Dr. Laurie Kuestner, 50, of West Des Moines, their weapons were drawn, according to a report by the West Des Moines Police Department. Kuestner was ticketed for failure to yield to an emergency vehicle and speeding after more than a half-dozen police vehicles chased her vehicle along Interstate 235.

West Des Moines Police Officer Brent Kock said he immediately put his gun back in its holster when he saw the driver was wearing green medical scrubs.

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West Des Moines Police spokesman Sgt. Ken O’Brien told Patch Wednesday that officers acted reasonably in pulling the weapons after Kuestner refused to stop at roughly 2 a.m.

“Especially after dark, officers have no way of knowing who the driver is,” he said. “We don’t know what has just happened. We may encounter people who are speeding and they have just committed violent crimes we may not be aware of.”

When she got out of her vehicle, Kuestner wanted to know why she was being stopped, according to the police report.

“She told me that when she gets called in, she gets to the hospital however she could, and if the police try to stop her, they follow her to the hospital and then they let her go,” Kock wrote.

That didn't happen in this case, with Kuestner allegedly calling the officer a profanity, and police writing her tickets.

Mercy spokesman Gregg Lagan declined comment. “Mercy is unable to comment about an open report that involves an incident in which we had no direct knowledge,” he said.

Lagan also said that privacy laws prevent him from commenting on the condition of the patient Kuestner was called in to treat and whether the delay affected the patient’s medical status.

Police Spokesman: Officers Justified in Show of Force

In this case, the physician’s failure to yield to an emergency vehicle told law enforcement authorities that “the potential that she was fleeing a crime is there,” O'Brien said.

“We tend to think the worst,” he said. “If we don’t respond in that manner, we are truly behind in our ability to defend ourselves.”

O’Brien said it isn’t customary for police in West Des Moines — or other jurisdictions across the country, he said — to offer a police escort to medical personnel responding to emergencies. The law is clear that only emergency police, fire and rescue personnel are exempted from speeding laws, he said.

“The law requires everyone to stop,” he said.

If Kuestner had stopped, the whole situation likely would have been avoided, O’Brien said.

“It really comes down to an unfortunate incident exacerbated by someone being determined she wasn’t going to stop,” he said. “A quick stop and explanation might have easily resolved this. If she had immediately stopped, she may very well have not been cited.”

How the "Chase" Started

The incident started about 1:50 a.m. Saturday when West Des Moines Police Officer Ryan Purdy was running radar on the 22nd Street overpass bridge and clocked Kuestner allegedly driving 71 miles per hour in a 60 mile-per-hour zone as she headed east on Interstate 235 to the Des Moines hospital.

She reduced her speed, but continued through Windsor Heights to the exit for Mercy Medical Center in downtown Des Moines. According to Kock’s report, there were four to six marked police cars following her with emergency lights activated, and at least two more in the vicinity.

When police stopped Kuestner on the road just short of Mercy Hospital, she explained that she was responding to an emergency call, the report said. Officers kept her identification and followed her to Mercy; Kock said he followed her into the hospital.

“She was asking me how to spell my name and continued to complain about the stop and how I was preventing her from doing her job,” Kock wrote. “I followed Kuestner into the nurse’s station and Kuestner pointed to a room and said, ‘There the patient is,’ and asked if wanted to come in. I said I would remain at the counter and she could tend to her patient.”

Kock's report said that when he finished writing the citations for speeding and failure to yield and was explaining the charges to Kuestner, “she looked at me and said in a condescending tone: If an officer is shot and bleeding out, she would gladly come in to help save them and then proceeded to call me an ass. I told her that was professional, handed her the citations for failure to yield to an emergency vehicle and speeding, and she stormed off.”