One man's voice Thoughts, rants and commentary of a simple man

A Texas police officer and a power trip

The Dallas News reported today that the chief of the Dallas police department, David Kunkle, apologized for the mishandling of a traffic stop of NFL player Ryan Moats by three year veteran police officer Robert Powell.

Dallas Police Chief David Kunkle stood in front of a dozen news cameras this afternoon at police headquarters to apologize for the behavior of an officer who stopped a family outside a hospital emergency room.

Kunkle said Officer Robert Powell has been placed on paid administrative leave in connection with an incident last week in which he stopped a family rushing to visit a dying mother, detaining them for 13 minutes to write a traffic ticket.

Things are bad enough for people nowadays as it is. Why in the world would a police officer hold someone for 13 minutes to write a citation for a red light violation when he was told that the family was at the hospital to see their dying relative? There was really no question about the validity of their claim. And if there was, the officer could have easily corroborated their story by walking up with them to verify it.

They were speeding. Yes. They ran a red light. Yes. They even refused to stop until they got to the hospital. Yes. But when they got there and were pulled over the officer treated them, a car full of people of varying ages who did not even give the appearance of being threatening, with contempt and rudeness. When they tried to explain their situation the officer would only tell them to "shut your mouth".

As if to drive his point home, he not only berated them as he cited them and ignored their pleas for leniency and expediency, he also lectured them in the process. He held them even after the nurses came down and explained to him that Mr. Moats was needed to sign papers that allowed the doctors to try to resuscitate his dying mother-in-law (not sure that this is true on the part of the hospital, but it should have stood for something with the officer). And even after a nurse told officer Powell that Mr. Moats' mother-in-law was "code blue" - hospital lingo for "dead or not responding" - he continued to complete the citation AND lecture Mr. Moats.

At the end of it all, Mr. Moats, who handled his half of the interaction with as much grace as can be expected from a man in the situation he was in, was not able to bid his mother-in-law farewell because he was busy being lectured by officer Powell. She died during the incident.

This upsets me on so many levels. No officer should ever be allowed to do this. I know that a peace officer needs to be afforded a certain amount of latitude in doing his/her job. That has to be expected. But given the nature of this incident - the location, the story, the people involved, the supplications made by the hospital staff and even the responsiveness of the supporting officer - I think officer Powell should lose his job. He was directly responsible for Mr. Moats not being able to be with his family when his mother-in-law died.

And for what? So officer Powell could lecture him on how to respond to a traffic stop? And to add insult to injury, as the incident was wrapping up, officer Powell told Mr. Moats that next time all he has to do is stop when flashed and tell the officer what is going on. Um... didn't he do that here?

Officer Powell... you are the weakest link. Goodbye.