Violating hospital policy is definitely not a crime. however had you violated their policy and they told you to leave and you didn’t, you would be breaking the Texas law of Criminal Trespass.
If a cop walked up and said you are under arrest for violating hospital policy and actually arrested you, he would be violating your rights. It would be an unlawful arrest.
Over many years, I would go into a business and there would be some kind of disturbance. The manager on scene would in many cases say I want this person off of my property. At that point the discussion is over. If a customer causing the disturbance does not leave, he will be arrested for trespassing. It would not be for the disturbance but for not leaving when told. I always tried to give them plenty of notice and explain the law. The customer would often try to plea his case that he was right and the manager was wrong in the argument. Maybe the business did not honor a sale or something. It doesn’t matter who would win the argument. The person in charge of the property wanted him to leave and at that point he has to leave. The whole point of that is, I could not arrest the customer for arguing or basically anything else (assuming during the argument the customer did not commit another crime such as threaten the manager or commit Disorderly Conduct) but once the person in control of the property tells you to leave, you legally must leave. Until you refuse to leave, there is no crime.
Some people simply will not listen and will be arrested. It was a video going around maybe a year ago about the woman who was arrested in Galveston County for trespassing at a bank. The bank asked her to leave for not wearing a mask and she refused, demanding her right not to wear a mask. That is fine but you would not be arrested for not wearing the mask but for trespassing when asked to leave. Then all the anti-mask or anti mandate people said it was a violation of her rights and blah blah blah. It doesn’t matter what you believe about the lawfulness of mandates. The owner of a property told you to leave and the debate is over.
I can assure you that if you would have visited when told not to, the police would have very likely been called. The officer responding probably would not have cared about any argument and would simply ask the person in charge, do you want this person off of your property and will you agree to filing charges? If the answer was yes, you would probably be given a warning at that moment and given the opportunity to leave.
The bad thing about trespass warnings, they can be indefinite. It is not like it’s a one time deal. Once you have been told you are not allowed on the property, if you return a year later you can have charges filed on you.
One more war story. Four or five years ago I was working the Black Friday sale at a Walmart. I was a supervisor over the security for Black Friday for several years. We practically never had any problems because Walmart after a couple of fiasco‘s around the country, along with other stores, changed their tactics. They would do things like put an item of electronics on one side of the store and another item of electronics on the other. People could not gather up at one location. The people wanting a computer on sale would be on one side and the people wanting a TV would be on the other and the people wanting an Apple Watch would be somewhere else. This kept 200 people from clustering in one location such as electronics. Every year however, you could bet that if there was any disturbance it would be at the towels. That’s right folks, I still don’t understand why but if there will be disturbances or fights it will be at the towels on sale.
Also on Black Friday, they do it during the regular business day so people don’t rush when they unlock the doors. You can go shop but the items on sale are wrapped up in plastic and at a certain time such as 6PM, the plastic will be taken off by store personnel. Probably 20 minutes before the sale started that year, I was called by a manager to the… You guessed it, towels. A woman who had been first in line, maybe for an hour or more, decided that she would lay on the towel and spread her arms around them and partially blocked the aisle. The manager asked her not to be spread eagle on the towels and to simply step back. She refused. After a discussion naturally, the police working security were called. Again, it was simple. Ma’am you have to step back away from the towels. The sale starts in a few minutes, you will be first in line and get the first choice and I will stand here if I need to. She again refused and said you cannot tell me what to do. Uhhhh…. Yes, the manager can. So after explaining the law and again giving her an opportunity to stay, she refused and laid across the towels. At that point like I have said before, the discussion was over. You’ll either leave the store at this moment or you will go to jail for trespassing and likely be given a warning never to return to Walmart.
She left the store. She might’ve been saying something like this is illegal and I might speak to a lawyer but I don’t remember any specifics. I remember that she was not happy however she was given more than one opportunity to be number one in line and to step back out of the aisle and she refused. She knew her rights!!
Oh yeah, we did not give her a trespass warning. She could’ve come back the next day and it would’ve been fine. I applaud the management for being reasonable and just ending the disturbance at that moment without taking a more drastic measure.
From his webpage, yesterday they tested him breathing without oxygen and using room air. I think he did better than expected and was able to breathe on his own however they put him back on oxygen to keep from stressing him. Yesterday he also showed response such as moving his toes on command. He was doing well enough today that they took him off of oxygen completely and also off of sedation.
