Posted on 03/26/2009 7:44:00 AM PDT by texan75010
As he rushed his family to the hospital, 26-year-old NFL running back Ryan Moats rolled through a red light. A Dallas police officer pulled their SUV over outside the emergency room.
Moats and his wife explained that her mother was dying inside the hospital.
"You really want to go through this right now?" Moats pleaded. "My mother-in-law is dying. Right now!"
The officer, 25-year-old Robert Powell, was unmoved. He spent long minutes writing Moats a ticket and threatened him with arrest.
"I can screw you over," the officer told Moats. "I'd rather not do that."
The scene last week, captured by a dashboard video camera, prompted apologies and the promise of an investigation from Dallas police officials Wednesday.
"There were some things that were said that were disturbing, to say the least," said Lt. Andy Harvey, a police spokesman.
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
No dude, I’m on your team, deal with it.
OK, me the bad guy today with no compassion....
Moats said "please give me a ticket, just make it fast, my mother in law is dying"
Dipstick "LEO" decides he's being disrespected and wants to give a lecture. He then goes out of his way to take his time even after another LEO(a real one) and the nurse are imploring his worthless butt to let everyone in.
Personally I hope Moats and his family bankrupt that POS and he never works again.
He was cited for running a red light, not reckless op or DUI. my guess is no other cars were coming or there was a close call with other vehicles.Read the article. Moats was stopped at the light with his hazards on and the other driver *waved him through*! The cop is a worthless jackass.Sounds like a money stop to me, if getting the ticket money is more important than getting to the side of a dying loved one then OK. However I think you will find few to back up such an idea.
What constitutes necessity is legally defined and would be a matter for the jury to decide in a trial, if it got to that, or a judge in a traffic case, since those don't have jury trials. I think that your case would definitely constitute a legally-recognized necessity. The NFL player's case would be questionable, because he was not personally facing an emergency, and there are many occasions in life when we want to be somewhere quickly, but life and property are not in danger if we are not. It would be too large an exception.
That said, the Dallas cop was a jerk, and they were right to reassign him.
Sounds like you have a helluva wife. Thank God there are still jurisdictions where you can yell at the cops without being thrown in the slammer on some phony charge.
I would have noted that, but didn’t want to be attacked by the crowd here who hates any lawsuit. I think such a lawsuit would be warranted, if the delay caused damage.
One other thing, the doctrine of necessity requires you to act “reasonably”. Thus, if you are driving 60 in a 45 to get to the hospital, you might be justified, and have a defense. But, if you are driving 125 through a school zone, you probably won’t be able to assert the defense. You must violate the law only to the extent necessary and appropriate to the nature of the emergency. Each case stands on its own facts, and in a criminal case where the defense is asserted, the jury would decide.
Yes, the Cowboys could do that. I don’t know how it is with other law enforcement agencies, but because we were on-call 24 hours a day, in order to take a second job, whether it was part-time or not, we had to request permission from our department head. If your work record was spotty, ie., if you had a lot of absences or were repeatedly late, they could restrict what employment you could participate in when you were off-duty.
“Lots of people here don’t bother to read before they post.”
You should at least have the courtesy to ping Laz when you mention him. ;^D
Where we live, midnight thru @ 4am the lights flash red/yellow - depending on direction, of course .. that might be a good resolution to avoid any future problems like this one if it’s not an area that’s heavily traffic’d late at night and especially if it’s near a hospital.
I can’t imagine being a cop today in Jaxhonnesburg.
This is a well-thought out rebuttal; I think you made your case. Perhaps I too quickly allowed him too much rope. I’ll be more careful.
I hear you, Puppage.
But the cop could have offered to escort them to the hospital.
Baylor isn't the easiest hospital to get to either. Lots of buildings and lots of nearby intersections. Go to the wrong building and you may find that the right building is two blocks away. It's in a bad part of town, too.
Yes, I got the hell away from that cop as fast as I could stagger, and hid in a Vietnamese boedga across the street until I saw him leave. I wasn't the only one that got a taste of his nightstick that evening.
This was the fall of 1986, right outside the Mabuhay Gardens nightclub in San Francisco, BTW.
Thanks for posting.
Words escape me.
He should be placed back in civilian care immediately.
Cops are civilians. Nothing more. They tend to forget this and need to be reminded from time to time.
The difference between reasons and excuses is that "excuses" don't get that sort of reaction out of me. I suspect that a jury would feel the same way that I do in favor of Mr. Moats and his family.
Sorry for Moats and his family and actually I’m sorry for the cop.
BECAUSE THIS IS WHAT THE POLICE AND POLICE OFFICERS HAVE BEEN REDUCED TO!!!
He wanted proof of insurance. Why? Would a card sitting in a glove box have prevented any accidents or prevented anyone from running a red light? Of course not!
The cop wanted insurance because he was told everybody has to have insurance! And why does everybody have to have insurance? Because the insurance companies have the legislators and governors in their back pocket and they rammed laws through with highfalutin’ titles such as Financial Responsibility Act etc.
But here’s the dirty little secret: uninsured people still drive every day and probably always will. The insurance comapnies aren’t interested in safety, they are interested in limited damages from collisions and/or lawsuits. You can bet that in exchange for all the nice fines and fees paid into state coffers when that magic little card isn’t found in a vehicle or on a driver’s person the insurance companies sought caps on damages and astronomical lawsuit awards.
Back to the cop: his training came from the brass. The brass get their orders from city, county and state governments. City, county and state governments are in thrall to the insurance companies hence the silly mania every cop shows for seeing proof of insurance.
Follow the money - to paraphrase a Colt .45 commercial it works every time!
The story has since been updated. I'll quote it directly:
"They exercised extraordinary patience, restraint, dealing with the behavior of our officer," Kunkle said. "At no time did Mr. Moats identify himself as an NFL football player or expect any kind of special consideration. He handled himself very, very well."
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