Posted on 07/12/2005 2:45:40 PM PDT by Racehorse
Dave Newman did what many of us like to think we would do — if we had the guts to leave, if only for a few minutes, our little cocoons of security.
He rescued a man who was drowning in the San Marcos River, Abed Duamni.
For his act of heroism, Newman did not get a medal, a letter of commendation or a key to the city.
He got a visit to the jailhouse, where he was charged with interfering with public duties.
"I was amazed," Newman, 48, told reporters after getting out of the Hays County Law Enforcement Center last week.
Police say Newman disobeyed emergency personnel who ordered him out of the water. Perhaps. But his intransigence saved Duamni.
"I reached a point where I said, 'I'm dead,'" Duamni, 35, a mechanical engineer who lives in Houston, told the Associated Press.
If the story ended there, a shimmering act of courage would have been tainted by a mind-numbing act of stupidity. But the story does not end there. Texas State University Police, realizing that the rescue overshadowed the refusal to comply with the orders to leave the river, dropped the charges against Newman last week.
The police did the right thing — finally. Law enforcement officials like to go by the book, but sometimes the real world intrudes. It may be a crime to fail to heed the pleas of emergency personnel, but it is a bigger crime to punish a man for an act of bravery.
This story has heads shaking in disbelief all across Texas.
A little more from The San Marcos Daily Record
Mayor Susan Narvaiz and university President Denise Trauth did not back down from officials' earlier contention that the arrest was legal and proper but said Dave Newman's role in rescuing a tourist warranted charges against him being dropped.
"Mr. Newman was arrested because of his refusal to comply first with pleas, then requests and then orders to leave the river after his rescue of Mr. Duamni," the statement read. "However, Mr. Newman did perform a heroic act, and we believe the proper course of action is to drop the charges."
Newman could have been sentenced to as many as 180 days in jail and fined up to $2,000 if he had been convicted of the class B misdemeanor.
Newman, 48, a corporate airline pilot, could not be reached for comment. In an opinion piece published this week in the Daily Record, Newman said he chose saving Duamni's life over following police orders to clear the area for emergency workers.
"I feel that I made a correct decision to momentarily delay complying with police directives, in order to make one more dive into the underwater cavity where Mr. Aved Duamni had been trapped for over 10 minutes," Newman wrote.
"... I was overwhelmed with astonishment when I surfaced to find him alive and well, and clinging to a handhold on the wall there in the turbulent water. I was also amazed that the police subsequently arrested me and took me to jail."
Earlier stories say bystanders became extremely upset with the police . . . in this instance . . . rightly so.
This guy's a righteous dude in my book. I'd would of jumped right in with him. Not being familiar with this area, any possiblilty that because this was a University department, their administraion was a little more srewed up than you're average PD?
That's a given.
Yep. Texas State University, formerly Southwest Texas State University, formerly Southwest Texas State Teachers College . . . Lydon Johnson's alma mater.
So that's why I couldn't link to it . . . you were hamming up the works! :-)
For those who don't know, this pig was so famous it has a play written about it: "In Remembrance of Ralph the Swimming Pig." Still performed.
Thanks, andyk.
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