The Dallas Police Department at Our Service

I am not known for being the model driver. Unlike my parents, grandparents and brother who are all very conscientious vehicle operators, I have been pulled over more times than I can count for various infractions, usually speeding. However, throughout my history with the law, I have grown to have a deeply rooted dislike for the police in general. Their arrogance and condescending swagger really gets under my skin. Their eagerness to flaunt their authority and take full advantage of it at every opportunity does not earn respect with me. Probably 95% of my encounters with police have been completely negative and leave me feeling angered. Even though I know I'm in the wrong and consequences are due, I still don't think it gives the police the right to talk to me just any kind of way. I feel I have been treated very disrespectfully at times, and I am a white female. I know that my distrust cannot even compare to my neighbors and friends of color who have been at times victims of very unjust actions by law enforcement representatives. However, a story I read in the Dallas Morning News just really takes the cake. I feel this story is a prime example of the overall attitude of the Dallas Police Department and how they treat our citizens.

Here's the story:

NFL player pulled over outside hospital while rushing to be with dying relative

06:39 AM CDT on Thursday, March 26, 2009
By STEVE THOMPSON and TANYA EISERER / The Dallas Morning News


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.

Moats' mother-in-law, Jonetta Collinsworth, was struggling at 45 with breast cancer that had spread throughout her body. Family members rushed to her bedside from as far away as California.

On March 17, the night of their incident with Powell, the Moatses had gone to their Frisco home to get some rest. Around midnight, they received word that they needed to hurry back to the hospital if they wanted to see Collinsworth before she died.

The couple, along with Collinsworth's father and an aunt, jumped into the SUV and headed back toward Baylor Regional Medical Center at Plano. They exited the Dallas North Tollway at Preston Road, just down the street from the hospital.

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.

Powell, watching traffic from a hidden spot, flipped on his lights and sirens. In less than a minute, he caught up to the SUV and followed for about 20 more seconds as Moats found a parking spot outside the emergency room.

Moats' wife, 27-year-old Tamishia, was the first out. Powell yelled at her to get back in.

"Get in there!" he yelled. "Let me see your hands!"

"My mom is dying," she explained.

Powell was undeterred.

"I saw in his eyes that he really did not care," Tamishia Moats said Wednesday.

Tamishia Moats and her great-aunt ignored the officer and headed into the hospital. Ryan Moats stayed behind with the father of the dying woman.

"I waited until no traffic was coming," Moats told Powell, explaining his passage through the red light. "I got seconds before she's gone, man."

Powell demanded his license and proof of insurance. Moats produced his license but said he didn't know where the insurance paperwork was.

"Just give me a ticket or whatever," he said, beginning to sound exasperated and a little argumentative.

"Shut your mouth," Powell told him. "You can cooperate and settle down, or I can just take you to jail for running a red light."

There was more back and forth.

"If you're going to give me a ticket, give me a ticket."

"Your attitude says that you need one."

"All I'm asking you is just to hurry up."

Powell began a lecture.

"If you want to keep this going, I'll just put you in handcuffs," the officer said, "and I'll take you to jail for running a red light."

Powell made several more points, including that the SUV was illegally parked. Moats replied "Yes sir" to each.

"Understand what I can do," Powell concluded. "I can tow your truck. I can charge you with fleeing. I can make your night very difficult."

"I understand," Moats responded. "I hope you'll be a great person and not do that."

Hospital security guards arrived and told Powell that the Moatses' relative really was upstairs dying.

Powell spent several minutes inside his squad car, in part to check Moats for outstanding warrants. He found none.

Another hospital staffer came out and spoke with a Plano police officer who had arrived.

"Hey, that's the nurse," the Plano officer told Powell. "She said that the mom's dying right now, and she's wanting to know if they can get him up there before she dies."

"All right," Powell replied. "I'm almost done."

As Moats signed the ticket, Powell continued his lecture.

"Attitude's everything," he said. "All you had to do is stop, tell me what was going on. More than likely, I would have let you go."

It had been about 13 minutes.

Moats and Collinsworth's father went into the hospital, where they found Collinsworth had died, with her daughter at her side.

The Moatses, who are black, said Wednesday that they can't help but think that race might have played a part in how Powell, who is white, treated them.

"I think he should lose his job," said Ryan Moats, a Dallas native who attended Bishop Lynch High School and now plays for the Houston Texans.

Powell, hired in January 2006, did not return a call for comment. Assistant Chief Floyd Simpson said Powell told police officials that he believed that he was doing his job. He has been re-assigned to dispatch pending an investigation.

"When people are in distress, we should come to the rescue," said Simpson. "We shouldn't further their distress."

Collinsworth was buried Saturday in Louisiana.

All I can do is shake my head at this. Yes, I understand that police have a duty to uphold the law and that a law was broken. Yes, I understand that NFL players are not above the law. However, common sense tells us that there are extenuating circumstances that call for service of a different kind from police. You would think that once the officer heard the explanation of what was going on that he would have offered to escort them speedily to the hospital or tried to accomodate their concern in some way. Instead, this officer picked one of the most tragic times in this family's life to go on a power trip. I am disgusted.

I understand police have a difficult job and that many of them grow hardened. They may feel no one respects them or the authority of the law. I've felt this as a teacher... I've felt the frustration at the constant disrespect directed toward us as adults and educators. I understand the frusrtation leads you to want to demand respect and at times you find yourself in a power struggle, despite the fact that your intelligence may recognize it's not worth it. Yet this story is exactly why even ordinary people no longer trust or respect police. Law-abiding citizens' lives are just accessories and pawns in boosting already over-inflated egos. But just as police demand respect, they must give it. Their badge is not a license to run wild with the authority that has been granted them. There is still a time and place for compassion and for having regard for the citizens they are supposed to "serve and protect." Many black men are resigned to the fact that they will always be subject to suspicion, to being pulled over with no real reason other than the color of their skin, to searches and questioning that go beyond the norm at routine traffic stops. They are resigned to the fact that they must always be extra cautious in all they do and say and in the places they choose to visit because of how quickly their "offenses" can be escalated and even embellished by the police. This is a fact of life in Dallas, just as it is in many other cities. But I can't imagine the frustration of Mr. Moats, who probably could have resigned himself to dealing with the police scrutiny on any other night, but being asked to deal with it when trying to say good-bye to a dying relative...it's too much. It's just really too much.

In my opinion, the police really need to adjust their attitudes before they completely destroy people's trust and respect for the law altogether. It's thousands of incidents like this that are slowly chipping away at the public's trust for the law. To whom much is given, much is required. If one is given much authority, they must handle it with wisdom, fairness, and even compassion when necessary.

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