Cop pulls over an ambulance for not "yielding" to him while there is a patient in the ambulance!

Good grief. The ambulance did yield in the video (not sure how long it took), but he was transporting a patient. Not sure about the gesture, but seriously, grabbing the paramedic by the throat?! Getting into a verbal shouting match at the roadside?!

Is Robert Powell (the Dallas cop who pulled over NFL star Ryan Moats who was trying to see his dying mother-in-law) now working in Oklahoma?

There was an incident of that here in Ontario......not tooooo long ago either, lets see if I can find it....

I went googling for the news story and look what popped up:

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Your normal speeder will panic and immediately pull over to the side. This is wrong. It arouses contempt in the cop-heart. Make the bastard chase you. ... Drivers of ambulances, fire department vehicles and police ...

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I didn't know 'bear was that damn good......

Yes, the police have the authority to pull over the EMS (no lights activated)...can see on the EMS bumper the lights activated and can hear the siren of the cruiser.

But here is a thought...lights, siren activated one is going to a priority call, why stop and delay your response time.....just jot down the licence plate and have a chit chat a little later with the EMS driver, EMS supervisor or any other driver for that matter.

And another "paid administrative leave" ...

Grabs the guy by the throat while on duty and he is on paid administrative leave?

I used to volunteer at one of the hospitals downtown TO, two guys get into a fight during lunch time (which technically you are not on duty and you aren't getting paid for it). The one who started it got fired 3 days later ...

hwybear wrote:

But here is a thought...lights, siren activated one is going to a priority call, why stop and delay your response time.....just jot down the licence plate and have a chit chat a little later with the EMS driver, EMS supervisor or any other driver for that matter.

This would be a great idea for people with common sense not his case apparently.

Dimension7 wrote:Grabs the guy by the throat

I can not recall seeing an video prior to this....as the video is edited....that's the problem with clips.....we also don't see the cruiser stopping, letting the EMS pass either....lots of missing stuff to give a full clear picture.

Hmm..looks like I'm in the minority on the vote.

The cop had every "right" to pull over the EMS, but simply having that right does not automatically mean it should be exercised. I think a better-worded question would be "Was the cop right to pull over an ambulance?" I would still answer "yes," since the ambulance had no lights on (which wouldn't affect the patient as sirens might); however he should have been allowed to proceed once it was clear that a patient was being transported.

I'd also like to see the unedited video of this. Maybe the news clip was edited to make the cops look bad, maybe not. The paramedic seemed fairly calm in relation to the cops, but he's a pretty big guy and maybe he did something prior to make the cops feel threatened.

I think he has a right to pull over any vehicle when their emergency lights are not on. Upon "discovering" the situation, he should have let it go. But by that point, yee haw, he was too far gone and only thinking with his little brain. Wasn't he one of those guys in the woods in Deliverance?

No one has mentioned the race issue. Black driver, white troopers, Texas. And what's with the choke hold? That's something for 8 year olds.

Remember the story of border guards stopping a firetruck from responding to an emergency? Similar situation, it's all about control and establishing who's in charge. Respect my authoritay!

The power competition/display is notorious between cops vs. EMS/firefighters.

But then this is not surprising, most cops do not treat simple civilians as they should, almost always they try intimidation techniques.

In this case the officer was caught on tape but how many cases there hasn't been a tape or a voice recording. These should be I believe in every police car and turned on at all times during their shift -it will increase the responsibility on both sides, the officer's and the civilian's.

I wonder though, who is supposed to stop police cars that drive like crazy with no siren and no lights on?

I think there should be a camera on an officer's person. One of those lipstick cameras with a 2 GB memory card, upload to a server at the end of the shift.

Something seems off about the face of the officer with his hand around the paramedic's neck. Could be just me, but for a second there I saw something more than just a face made from the effort of restraining someone.

Here's the full-length dashcam video from the State Trooper. (There's a 30-second advertisement at the beginning):

Looking at it closely, the ambulance was only in the way for a few seconds. It did pull over. The reason it didn't pull over initially was because there was a car on the shoulder. The call that the officer was going to was not a priority. He didn't even get out of his cruiser when he arrived at the call scene. In the traffic stop, the trooper's behaviour was totally inappropriate. But watch the video and judge for yourself.

ticketcombat wrote:Remember the story of border guards stopping a firetruck from responding to an emergency?

Sure do. They also stopped an ambulance transporting heart attack patient to a Detroit hospital from Windsor at the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel. The tunnel is only two lanes, the tunnel authority knew the ambulance was coming so they stopped all of the traffic to get it across, only to have it held up by US CBP.

The firefighter getting arrested by the cop while treating a patient was just asinine. Unfortunately you'll find dingbats in every profession, it's just that police misconduct receives far more attention from the media.

Dimension7 wrote:But then this is not surprising, most cops do not treat simple civilians as they should, almost always they try intimidation techniques.

That's an over-generalization. I don't agree at all. I've been stopped by police plenty of times. Only one of them was a bit of a jackass. And I've also seen enough incidents involving police that I'd say that most of them handle themselves well. Of course, in every line of work, 5%-10% of the population are out to lunch, and when those people happen to be cops its a huge problem because they can do much more harm than, say, a convenience store clerk with an attitude problem.

Dimension7 wrote:I wonder though, who is supposed to stop police cars that drive like crazy with no siren and no lights on?

Ever hear of Heidi Fischer? Or, people can be like this a**clown:

Did the officer have the right? Yes, of course. It is part of his job. Was it morally correct? That can only be answered in hindsight which is always 20/20.

Squishy wrote:I would still answer "yes," since the ambulance had no lights on (which wouldn't affect the patient as sirens might); however he should have been allowed to proceed once it was clear that a patient was being transported.

I would like to comment that in Ontario, our traveling priority (1=deferrable, 2=scheduled transfer, 3=prompt [use of lights/siren optional], and 4=urgent [lights/siren mandatory]) and our patient's acuity (1=highest [unconscious, vital signs absent] to 5=lowest [stubbed toe]) are independent from each other. I can have a patient that is a level 2 acuity, yet transport without lights and sirens of activated. Therefore, justifying pulling over an ambulance based on the fact that the emergency lights are off is a bad idea.

My colleagues and I have concluded that should an officer follow us with lights activated, we will contact our dispatch to ask his dispatch the reason he wants us to pull over. If it is not related to a matter of vehicle safety (i.e.: flat tire), we will advise that the officer can follow us to the hospital as patient care trumps his ticket. (Yes, the law is the law, but there are circumstances that require circumventing it.) The officer is more than welcome to talk to us at the hospital, once care has been transfered to the hospital staff. After all, it's not like our vehicle, truck number, and GPS tracking render us inconspicuous.

Yet another example of poor judgement: A few months ago, two of my colleagues attended to a patient involved in a motorcycle crash. They left the scene prior to the arrival of OPP, only to have an officer pull the crew over while en route to the hospital in order to get details from the driver. Needless to say, the paramedic that was driving told him to meet them at the hospital and resumed the trip. This has ruffled a few feathers at both EMS and OPP management.

Radar Identified wrote:Looking at it closely, the ambulance was only in the way for a few seconds. It did pull over. The reason it didn't pull over initially was because there was a car on the shoulder. The call that the officer was going to was not a priority. He didn't even get out of his cruiser when he arrived at the call scene.

The car on the shoulder.....was in front of the EMS, saw the lights and had moved to the shoulder and why did the EMS not see the cruiser lights

We do not know the priority was/was not at the gas station...know how many times we go lights/sirens and then get called off?

Think all of this could have been easily avoided:

- move to the right OR

- passenger stay in back of EMS OR

- wait and follow EMS to destination OR

all of this combined!