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 ...
In the rush to garner one more ticket toward his monthly quota and improve bottom line revenue ...er, I mean, protect and serve the officer could have escorted the SUV to the hospital, checked out the story and then, given a ticket.
But then, that might have taken an additional 10 busy minutes of his day or something ...
We need more Andy Taylors in law enforcement and a helluva lot fewer Barney Fifes.
Most are. Except the ones with gold shields.
His wife was with him and they WERE just outside the ER...
If he was alone, maybe press a little more, but geesh - the cop could have some sympathy working that close to a hospital!
Moats broke traffic laws to get to the emergency room, where he was pulled over. I don’t know about the cop, but I’d probably think that might be a clue that the guy might be telling the truth.
“There is a video as well. The cop has since been assigned to desk duty.”
They have a strong Union.
If Moats had been pulled over somewhere else, I would be more inclined to give the officer the benefit of the doubt on thinking it was an excuse. However, the article says this took place outside the emergency room.
Not neccesariy so. I conducted traffic enforcement on a regular basis on one of our busy four lanes that led past our hospital. You wouldn’t believe how many I stopped on thier way to the hospital because of an emergency. I would release them and meet them there. Not once in all my years was there a genuine emergency. I would then issue the citation. Doctors were notorious for using the emergency excuse when all they were doing is going to the hospital to do thier rounds. I’m sure that are some legitimate cases. I just never ran across any.
Spouse wasn't driving... problem solved...
Moats broke the law & the cop was out-of-line = double jeopardy...
He could have given Moats a safe escort to the hospital and found out. That would have been "Protecting and Serving", which is what we pay law enforcement to do.
Reassign the cop to city vice squad duty for a couple of weeks. It’ll change his attitude pretty quickly.
Several years ago the battery on a lawnmower blew up in my face filling my eyes with acid. I managed to get in the house and called my buddy who lived nearby. He rushed over and rushed me to the hospital. Enroute we were pulled over. My friend pleaded with the police to get me to the hospital, but he paid no attention and left me sitting in the truck with my eyes on fire! Finally after 45 minutes, he called an ambulance for me and wrote my friend a speeding ticket.
Next day I went and saw thw chief of police of the town and he told me to tell my friend to tear up the ticket, but explained to me that even though you have an emergency, you still must follow the law. He was right.
I think when you pull someone over right outside the emergency room, as it says in the article, it lends credence to the whole “a family member is dying” plea.
You're right. The cop should have tazed him a few times to make sure his story held up.
Amen.
If you read the article, you will see it clearly states that he did.
I got pulled over once in the rainfor running a red light it was 4:15 on a rainy morning The light was red i sat there for a few minutes it takes about 5 to change I ran it most mornings it was a block from my house i was on my way to work cops axe me to get out of my truck and sit on the back bumber in the rain while thay sat in there car running me
>>>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.<<<
If this did not happen right outside the emergency room, I might agree. The driver wansn’t being belligerent, he was just saying, please hurry up and give me the ticket, so I can see my mother in law before I die.
The cop was not maintaing public safety and order, he was just being a jerk, becasue he had the power to do it. Looks like a great candidate for 0bama’s Civilian National Security Force.
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