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 ...
There is a video as well. The cop has since been assigned to desk duty.
There are @$$holes in every profession.
Traffic duty isn’t there for your safety...just your money.
True, but only cops get to carry guns, shoot people, arrest them, etc. All the more reason to have little tolerance for this kind of crap.
An authoritarian prick.
Not that the sports community has ever used this kind of ploy to push law enforcement away before nor used their “celebrity” to dismiss authority. Yeah, reassign the guy. Let the athletes run the town along with the rappers and Hollywood.
I’ll have to remember that mother-in-law story
And a lot of FR posters think the cops are on our side when it comes to the 2nd Amendment. Think again.
Racism?
How is the cop supposed to know that this isn't just another in a long line of excuses?
Just playing devils advocate here, folks.
Time for Robert Powell and the Dept. to both cough up some money and for Robert Powell to enjoy some time being a Nazi meter maid. There are good cops and then there are those like Robert Powell who make all cops look bad and make a difficult job even more difficult.
Sad story. I don’t know that race was involved. Maybe. But I’ve had a few a$$hole cops in my day too.
That cop is a total a$$wipe.
Some people go into law enforcement for the wrong reasons. However, I wonder if Moats had his hazard lights on? I had an emergency once, and a cop saw my lights, and escorted me to the hospital with his lights on. Good cop versus bad cop.
You don't think much before you post, do you?
I generally side with the police in most situations but this sounds like a power mad officer who wanted to show he was in charge. I hate that the race card is being played again though....
The cop was heavy-handed but the guy ran a red light. If there were a car coming in the other direction, there could have been more fatalities than the already sick/dying mother in law.
Excellent solution. Let Robert Powell write all the tickets he wants while checking those meters for the next few years in the cold and heat of Dallas. I suspect he will find another line of work.
Why? It didn't seem to work. The mother in law died with almost everyone still in the vehicle waiting on the cop to finish his lecture.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.