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 ...
A Dallas police officer pulled their SUV over outside the emergency room.
He could have walked in and asked..................
My exact thought.
“Here’s the bullet, Andy...”
I agree. He could have followed them and made a determination. What I don’t condone, and I haven’t seen the vidoe, is the apparant repugnant behavior of the officer. Most officers that I worked with would have handled the situation differently.
Video at the link shows he did have his hazard lights on
The article says:
“Moats turned on his hazard lights. He stopped at a red light, where, he said, the only nearby motorist signaled for him to go ahead. He went through.”
Sad story.
The cop was supposed to know because the security guard came out and told him so. Then the nurse came out to let him know that she was dying. The cop told her “We’re almost finished here”. His clear objective was to be an ass to this young man; to wield his power. Once he had the information from hospital personnel, he should have just let the guy go to be with his wife as her mother died. Or, he could have let them go inside and investigated for himself.
Was talking to the county sheriff the other day. He was telling the story of a local who got called in by a neighbor for walking around in front of his house carrying a pistol. The Sheriff's Dept over-reacted, surrounded the house, complete w/ snipers and called the Sheriff. When the Sheriff arrives, he simply goes up to the door (against tactical advisors who wanted to rush the place), knocks and asks the guy what's up. "Just discharging a CO2 piston before putting it away."
Tactical guy says, "Sheriff, you should never approach a potential situation like that. You could have been killed." Sheriff says, "I was more worried about your snipers shooting me in the back than I was about this guy."
"Just playing devils advocate here, folks."
I don't think the devil needs the help. :-)
Uhhh.....he’s outside of the hospital?
How is the cop supposed to know that this isn't just another in a long line of excuses?
Sure - that's the way I would bet, when a family acted desperate to get into the hospital I was standing next to. </sarcasm>
Hospital security guards and a nurse came out and told the officer that Moats' story was legit...and he STILL wasted time.
There is no excuse for the officer's behavior here.
The article further states that a Plano officer arrived and tried to prevail upon his colleague to stop being such a dick. I can only imagine the Plano officer was mortified. If I had been him, I would have been telling the Dallas officer just what an embarrassment to our mutual profession he was.
Second, a wannabe celebrity brazenly broke multiple traffic laws and had an excuse when stopped by law enforcement. Not anything new here either.
In hindsight it's clear the athlete was telling the truth . . . but if YOU were the officer who just saw this guy drive through a redlight would you initially assume this celeb was telling the truth? That said, assuming the article is accurate, this cop is a complete a$$hole and more than a little dense as it should have taken about 10 seconds to realize the athlete was being honest.
Some people are just punks and giving them a badge makes it worse.
You will respect my Authori-TAY!
Really, should he have been driving at all, given the dire condition he was in?
: )
.
Either that or the knee jerk reactors just cannot seem to help themselves.
But some professions attract them like flies to $hit.
you are allowed to speed through red lights at intersections now if someone is in the hospital??
and if they had been hit by a semi at that intersection?
With guns and arrest powers?
I see assholes every day, but most them don’t have the power to screw my life over.
I love it when I don't read the entire article.
I was with the driver on this till his relative pulled the race card.
If the guy was pulled over because he was Black the cop would have asked to search, yada, yada.
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