OAKLAND, Calif., Feb. 22 /PRNewswire/ -- The California Nurses Association today condemned Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for the personal use of the California Highway Patrol as a political police force to harass Registered Nurse critics just one week after the governor's security detail detained an RN for wearing a hospital nurse uniform during a film premiere attended by the governor.

CNA strongly criticized the targeting of RNs by Schwarzenegger for harassment by state police officers for RNs' criticism of his record on healthcare and patient safety.

This morning after a report of the incident appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, Kelly DiGiacomo, RN, the Sacramento nurse, who was wrongfully detained at the film event February 15 at which Schwarzenegger spoke, was called by a state security officer. The officer said they were continuing to investigate "any incidents where we feel the governor may have been threatened." The "threatening act," according to the officer was "because I was wearing a nurses uniform," DiGiacomo said.

Last week, DiGiacomo had a ticket to attend the Sacramento premiere of Be Cool: Get Shorty II. While seated in the audience, in her nurses' uniform, DiGiacomo was approached by an undercover officer who demanded to see her ticket and pulled her out of the audience. DiGiacomo was then detained in a small back room where she was interrogated for an hour by an undercover officer while other officers guarded her. She was then held for another 30 minutes before her release.

But the harassment has continued, with the phone call today and the thinly veiled threat that the interrogation and harassment will continue. "How is it that someone can be considered a threat simply for wearing nurses' scrubs?"

"They really treated me like I was some sort of a serious threat or a terrorist," says an outraged DiGiacomo. "I'm sure they will have a file on me now because they really profiled me."

"It's appalling that the highest constitutional officer of our state feels a nurse's uniform is threatening, and is unwilling to allow a working nurse to attend a public event," said CNA Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro.

"RNs have a right and a very good reason to protest the governor's rollback of patient care protections to please his corporate healthcare donors. His attempt to suspend First Amendment rights for RNs because they advocate for patients, not for corporate interests, is deplorable," DeMoro said. DeMoro also blasted the governor for "a disgraceful waste of public money to fund his private security detail to harass nurses."

The California Nurses Association is the nation's largest and fastest- growing professional association of nurses, with approximately 60,000 members in 165 facilities.

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