Yet another reason why Dallas sucks
stown
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<< <i>Dallas cop drew gun on Texans player, wife, police say
By DAVID BARRON Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle
March 26, 2009, 8:46PM
1 2
Louis DeLuca AP
Dallas Police Chief David Kunkel apologized to the family of Texans running back Ryan Moats over the incident.
A Dallas policeman who refused to allow Texans running back Ryan Moats and his family to reach the bedside of a dying family member was placed on administrative leave Thursday and chastised by the city’s police chief for lack of compassion, discretion and common sense.
Police Chief David Kunkle said administrative charges will be levied against officer Robert Powell, who detained Moats and family members at Baylor Regional Medical Center in Plano after they raced through suburban Dallas in the early morning hours of March 18, twice rolling through red lights, in an effort to share the final moments of Moats’ mother-in-law.
Jonetta Collinsworth, 45, the mother of Moats’ wife, Tamishia, died as Moats and his father-in-law stood by the players’ car while Powell threatened to jail the men and said, “I can screw you over.”
“I am embarrassed and disappointed by (Powell’s) behavior,” Kunkle said. “His behavior, in my opinion, did not exhibit the common sense, the discretion, the compassion that we expect our officers to exhibit.
“… At the point the officer was told that they were responding to a dying family member, that should have been his concern.”
Moats, in an interview with a Dallas radio station, said the officer’s intransigence robbed him and his father-in-law of irreplaceable moments in a time of grief that morphed, after the officer pulled a weapon on Moats and his wife, into moments of confusion and terror.
“All I know is what he did was wrong,” Moats told Dallas station KRLD-FM. “He stole a moment from me that I can never get back.”
Moats said in the radio interview that he and his family left his home in Frisco for the hospital after being told that Jonetta Collinsworth, who suffered from breast cancer, was near death.
He said he drove with the emergency lights flashing on his SUV and twice drove through red lights as he approached the hospital, but only after receiving hand signals from motorists that it was safe for him to proceed.
Video shot by the police car’s dashboard camera indicated that Powell pursued Moats for about a minute, with lights flashing and most of that time with his siren blaring, before the player stopped his SUV outside the hospital’s emergency entrance.
Moats and his wife told The Dallas Morning News that Powell pointed his gun at each of them as they got out of the vehicle. A Dallas police supervisor told the newspaper it is not uncommon for officers to display a weapon during a traffic stop if they feel threatened.
Moats said Tamishia Moats and her aunt ran into the hospital as the officer turned his attention to him and to his father-in-law, who also was in the SUV. The police video recording includes several terse exchanges between Powell and Moats, even after the player repeatedly told the officer that he was rushing to the side of a dying relative.
“You really want to go through this right now?” Moats said. “My mother-in-law is dying, right now.” A nurse and hospital security guards also confirmed the player’s story to Powell,
“Shut your mouth,” Powell said at one point. “You can cooperate and settle down, or I can just take you to jail for running a red light.”
Powell detailed the player and his father-in-law for about 13 minutes, according to the police tape, and as Moats signed a ticket for running a red light, said, “Attitude’s everything. All you had to is stop, tell me what is going on. More than likely, I would have let you go.”
Kunkle said Moats exhibited “extraordinary restraint in dealing with the behavior of our officer. At no time did Mr. Moats identify himself as an NFL football player or expect any kind of special consideration.”
A Dallas police spokesman said the traffic citation has been dismissed.
During the KRLD-FM interview Thursday, Moats said, “I couldn’t say anything that would make him (Powell) calm down. He said a lot of stuff to me. … He really, you could say, stuck it to me, I guess.”
Kunkle said Powell, who was placed on paid leave and assigned to dispatch duty, told a supervisor he was doing his job and “believed he had not acted inappropriately.”
Asked by talk show hosts Kevin Scott and Greg Hill if he thought the case had racial overtones, Moats, 26, replied, “I can’t be the judge of that.” Moats is African-American, and Powell, 25, is white.
“I would hope that people would think of it as a human being and not a race thing,” he said. “This should anger any race, because that could be your mother. That could be somebody else’s mother dying in a hospital. That is something that you cannot get back. It’s gone, you know. That time is gone.”
Moats, who played for Bishop Lynch High School in Dallas and for Louisiana Tech, has been with the Texans for three seasons.
“Our thoughts and prayers go out to Ryan and his family,” Texans spokesman Tony Wyllie said. “They’re dealing with a terrible loss in the family as well as an emotional situation.”
Material from The Associated Press and The Dallas Morning News contributed to this report.
david.barron@chron.com >>
Edited to add: Video can be seen -> here
So basically my kid won't be able to go to college, but at least I'll have a set where the three most expensive cards are of a player I despise ~ CDsNuts
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Everyone knows you permit them to go into the hospital and then take the ticket into them.
I think the officer is 100% right in this situation. These guys put their lives on the line every day. He doesn't know who's coming out of that vehicle or what's going to happen. I think the two women should be arrested too for fleeing a police officer.
Maybe if the guy would have had the brains to stop when the officer first turned the lights on him and explained the situation, he would have given him an escort to the hospital. Instead he disobeyed the laws and this is how the situation ended.
I think the Police Chief is a joke too, for not sticking up for his officer. Then for someone to start bringing race into it.......unreal!
<< <i>Geez.
Everyone knows you permit them to go into the hospital and then take the ticket into them.
LOL
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TheDallasCowboyBackfieldProject
<< <i>Let me see.........failing to stop for a police officer with siren and flashing lights, running stop signs, driving recklessly through a hospital parking lot, four occupants jumping out of a vehicle and two of them running away.........
I think the officer is 100% right in this situation. These guys put their lives on the line every day. He doesn't know who's coming out of that vehicle or what's going to happen. I think the two women should be arrested too for fleeing a police officer.
Maybe if the guy would have had the brains to stop when the officer first turned the lights on him and explained the situation, he would have given him an escort to the hospital. Instead he disobeyed the laws and this is how the situation ended.
I think the Police Chief is a joke too, for not sticking up for his officer. Then for someone to start bringing race into it.......unreal! >>
Did you even read the article? He stopped within 60 seconds of the sirens going off, Moats DID explain the situation, and no one involved played the race card.
While I would never wish something like this upon anyone, I'm this | | close to hoping you face something comparable. As goose said, any reasonable officer in the same position (ie outside of a hospital), would have followed them in and then gave a ticket (if he was an arse).
Additionally, the ticket has been dismissed and Powell will probably be sitting behind a desk for the rest of his career in law inforcement. So he was 100% WRONG in this situation, as are you.
Don't blame the officer. He was doing his job. The guy chose to break laws and failed to stop for police. He created this whole situation by his own actions. When you choose to do something, you have to prepare for the consequences.
<< <i>stown.......thanks for your reply. You don't have to worry, I'll never face anything like this, because I obey laws. Yes, I did read the article. I'm questioning whether you did or not. If you did, you would have realized that the only reason he stopped after 60 seconds, was because he arrived at his destination. Again, yes race was mentioned when he did an interview with the radio station. You must have missed that part. I never said anything about anyone playing the race card. All I said was race was brought into it.
Don't blame the officer. He was doing his job. The guy chose to break laws and failed to stop for police. He created this whole situation by his own actions. When you choose to do something, you have to prepare for the consequences. >>
You know, I had a whole thing typed out but to be honest, your responses aren't worth the time nor effort. I'm sure you've never, ever broken a law, ever, Mr. Perfect. Said it before and I'll say it again, no one involved brought up race, period.
And finally, the officer should be fired and I hope the Moats family sues the poop out of DPD.
The Officer did the right thing pulling these guys over for speeding and driving through Red lights.
The Officer at that point was very smart drawing his weapon.
Upon hearing the reasons why Moats & Family were doing this he should have followed them into the Hospital and got confirmation of the situation.
Moats has my upmost respect for not playing the NFL card or Race card.
As far as the Officer is concerned, Im not sure what to do as there is NO way of knowing what was going through his mind- It looks like he had tunnel vision on and was scared. The situation sucks but Im not ready to hang the Officer, it is very tough to tell what any of us would do in that situation, personal safety is ALWAYS the #1 concern when dealing with a situation on your own like that.
Edit- I will add that once Hospital Security confirmed the story he most definately should have let them go.
Edit: To me, this is a story about basic human compassion and decency, and the cop displayed none of those traits in this case..the vast majority of police officers are dedicated and professional but there are those who are arrogant jerks just like there are in everyday life...
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The link does not show all of the video but I would say that he may have wanted to start asking questions as soon as the people got out of the car and ran into the hospital.
Was he right in drawing his weapon? Probably. He needs to take a defensive stance in case this is a perilous situation. There are four people and he is one. He needs to protect himself.
With that said he went too far after a point and should have used better judgment. As mentioned, when he saw that the possible threat was diminished he may have wanted to ask questions about why these people were running, etc. or listened more closely to the explanation given. After the hospital people confirmed the story he should have backed down. Unfortunately he was then in a situation where he probably felt the need to proceed for his own satisfaction.
<< <i>Said it before and I'll say it again, no one involved brought up race, period.
And finally, the officer should be fired and I hope the Moats family sues the poop out of DPD. >>
1. Nobody "involved" brought up race, but the media here can talk about nothing else. It's probably the main reason the Police Chief made public comments about the officer, which in most any circumstance would be entirely inappropriate.
2. The officer involved is very inexperienced and probably didn't use the best possible judgment, but nobody got hurt, everything worked itself out right in the end, and firing the officer would be a bigger overreaction than the officer demonstrated. Had the mother-in-law lived another half hour, this would probably never have made the national news; firing an officer because of when a woman happened to die is ridiculous.
3. What possible purpose is served by suing DPD? They are the government, they don't have to come up with a penny. Suing DPD means suing the taxpayers of Dallas, and we did nothing wrong.
Up to a point, the officer did nothing wrong; he was right to stop the car, he was right to draw his gun when several people ignored his order to stay in the car, and he was right to detain Moats until he could determine what was going on. At some point after that, the officer should have calmed down and let Moats go on his way with a ticket or warning. It appears that instead he let his temper/adrenaline get the better of him and he detained Moats longer than necessary and was more aggressive in talking to him than he needed to be. I imagine that's not uncommon for inexperienced policemen, and that the answer is additional training - which is exactly what would have happened if Moats had not been a celebrity or if Moats' mother-in-law had lived a little while longer. I hope that's still what happens.
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<< <i>everything worked itself out right in the end, >>
The woman died before he got to see her, there are no do overs on seeing them before they die. I wouldn't say it all worked out.