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 ...
Just because there's a video showing the cop to be a D!@K cop, doesn't prove nothing.
Lets look at somethings. An SUV rolls through a red light-OK, it happens. The cop catches up to the SUV and follows with lights on for 20 seconds-not an abnormal time frame. They purposely drove to a hospital. Where a woman gets out running to get inside(to see her mother), obviously upset. The article mentions "family", so one would assume maybe kids in the truck.
Granted there are a lot of NFL players who can act like jerks, but there are even more you never hear about.
Too many cops have power attitudes, and the cops own video PROVES this guy is one.
So yeah, stick up for the cop in this one.
They have a strong Union.“There is a video as well. The cop has since been assigned to desk duty.”
Stronger than ACORN?
He should be placed back in civilian care immediately.
Plenty of opportunities for cops to use their own good judgment.
I believe the fact that he was actually right beside the emergency room would be evidence enough that he was telling the truth. It’s not like the officer didn’t have his license plate number, he could have sent him a ticket.
NIce try, but you falsely characterized the situation. No one SPED through a red light.
Once the nurse came out, the dimmest of intellects should have gotten the message.
Since DimWit didn’t, time to discuss the matter in front of a jury.
Hopefully, the jury will make DimWit liable, rather than the Police Department. Somehow, I suspect the department is not pleased with DimWit’s decision making capability.
That sounds more like the cops I’ve had the privilege of working with for over 30 years. I retired last October. Don’t miss the job in the least, but sure do miss my guys and gals.
Cops are ugly to whites folks too.
I was almost choked out in Miami by two cops ..both black btw in Miami 18 years ago. They were huge and it was all racial...they almost killed by ship captain...a Colombian. A little black female corporal saved us ...bless her heart. Corporal Payne...I will never forget her.
The Barrett brothers (the cops) who were later sent to prison for home invasion and drug and murder conspiracies.
I’ve also been hard whupped by Mississippi white cops who hated long hairs in the early 70s as a lad.
A-hole cops come in all colors just like this one....
Cops are scared with justification of young black men but this case was very obvious what the truth was...this cop was just being a prick.
I knew good rural revolver carrying cowboy hat wearing old boy cops in my youth that were salt of the earth and had yer back. Some were just constables but they had balls and heart. Those days are gone I figure.
I also knew some good local cops too...back before all that SWAT stuff...he coached my Dixie Youth ballteam and now his boy is a freeper.
It’s a tough job that sometimes attracts mean angry resentful folks...or even criminals.
I think having a distraught wife and children in the vehicle with the driver might have been a clue.
He was wrong, and that is why he tore up the ticket, because he knew he was wrong. There is a doctrine called "necessity" that allows you to violate traffic laws, even murder someone, if it is necessary. It may not apply when you are rushing to the hospital to see someone, but it definitely applies to a situation where someone in need of emergency care is in your car and you are rushing to the hospital. Once the cop saw you in the truck in pain with a medical emergency, he could see that your friend had a good reason for speeding, and should have escorted you to the hospital, not delayed your treatment.
They did NOT go “speeding” through as you so ignorantly imply.
Yeah, and that’s really the point. He had them there, pulled over and valid identifications on everyone. Keeping them there for a lecture was pointless. Was a ticket warranted? Yeah, probably, but I wouldn’t have issued one. People don’t think rationally when a loved one is dying.
The car ended up at the ER, so the cop should have had a clue. At the least, cop should have followed the man into the hospital if he really FELT inclined to ticket him.
Cop was wrong!
sw
Everyone then is satisfied.
I’ve had some good cop stories too, which far outweigh the bad ones. The day after the Gulf War started, I raced home form college to be with my mom because my brother was over there. She was scared to death. Of course, when I say raced, it was true. Got pulled over. The cop asked me why I was going so fast, I told him and he let me go- with a warning.
This guy doesn’t have enough common sense to be a cop. What a jerk.
Having worn a uniform and having had to deal with a$$holes of all kinds, even those I worked with and for, I can't agree with you more. Before I read the whole article, I was leaning in support of the cop, but after I read that he had ordered the wife and aunt back into the car, along with his abusive comments, I realized this cop is a complete A-hole. Granted, Motes rolled through a redlight, but it's not as if he hadn't made appropriate signals to alert others of a problem, or use precaution before proceeding to park in front of the hospital. Hopefully this pissant cop will have learned a valuable lesson of checking out the facts before going off half-cocked.
Around twenty years ago in Horry County, SC, a black man was driving his mother who was having a heart attack to the Myrtle Beach hospital from Conway, SC (before the Conway hospital was built). Accompanying them was a 14 year old grand daughter. Horry County Police saw the man driving about 70 mph on route 501 in a 55 mph zone and pulled him over. When he protested that his mother was dying, they jerked her out of the car and left her lying on the road side while the son was beaten up and thrown into the back of a cop car. The woman died in front of her 14 year old on the side of the road, and the fellow was charged with resisting arrest along with a bevy of other things and sentenced to several years in the pokey. Nothing was ever said about the event afterward, as far as I know, and that is just one of many that I recall from the twenty years that I lived there.
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