Is this for real?

This story shows how a police officer should NOT handle a traffic stop such as this one. I mean, you have got to be kidding me, right? Be sure to play the video...

http://www.thestar.com/sports/article/608970

What an A$$$...

I would have just walked into the hospital and told him to get lost.

stupid cop...that running back should have tackled him down!!

I once read an article that discussed the various stages of cognitive reasoning. It was divided into 6 or 7 stages, stating that (theoretically) LEO functions at stage 4. To those in that particular level, the law is the law and nobody can get around it. It's the "I'll give my own grandma a ticket" mentality. Fortunately, only a few such as this idiot do not progress further. Individuals in stages 5-6/7 recognize and understand that laws are to maintain order; however, certain situations require that those laws be broken in order to meet a legitimate need.

Sure, a traffic law was broken. However, his act of waiting until the way is clear was reasonable for the situation. This incident meets clearly qualifies as an extenuating circumstance. I am at a loss for words to describe this officer's judgement and compassion. Once he had the driver's information, it could have been delt with later, especially since they were already at the hospital.

ditchMD wrote:

I once read an article that discussed the various stages of cognitive reasoning. It was divided into 6 or 7 stages, stating that (theoretically) LEO functions at stage 4. To those in that particular level, the law is the law and nobody can get around it. It's the "I'll give my own grandma a ticket" mentality. Fortunately, only a few such as this idiot do not progress further. Individuals in stages 5-6/7 recognize and understand that laws are to maintain order; however, certain situations require that those laws be broken in order to meet a legitimate need.

Sure, a traffic law was broken. However, his act of waiting until the way is clear was reasonable for the situation. This incident meets clearly qualifies as an extenuating circumstance. I am at a loss for words to describe this officer's judgement and compassion. Once he had the driver's information, it could have been delt with later, especially since they were already at the hospital.

Thats a really interesting breakdown. I hope the police will take this as an example and FIX this Problem!

It seems like getting a traffic ticket is now more important than life itself!

C'mon lets get Real!

At least it was genuine truth about the family member, they were in fact at a hospital. That certainly paints a bad picture about the police, not only there, but everywhere that was published.

HOWEVER....again biased reporting!!! The article keeps on going about the officer did this and that........finally way down at the bottom....there is a one liner on behalf of the police officer that caused this whole problem.

"It was a PURSUIT that lasted over one minute once sirens were activated".......OK, stop the situation right there.....maybe once the lights turned on....STOP, explain.....certainly a officer would be very receptive to that, but NO, keep on going, now the officer has no idea why the vehicle is not stopping (robbery, stolen vehicle, drugs etc..)

Certainly the officer can take 1/2 the blame, but Moats also deserves half the blame here too!!

I will side with 'bear here. You as the ordinary citizen have no way of indicating why you are doing what you're doing...... difficult for all

Perhaps some bias, although having looked at the full length tape, the actual time where the officer was in a position where Moats should have reasonably known that he wanted him to stop was a period of about 30 seconds, and that was when they were already on the hospital grounds. Here's the full length:

http://www.dallasnews.com/video/index.html?nvid=345818

If I were Officer Powell, my first question would've been "is there a serious medical problem with someone in the vehicle?" The reason being, they ran a red light, with the hazard lights on, and then proceeded to drive into a hospital. This would tell me that perhaps someone was being rushed to the hospital and they either did not have time, or did not think, to call paramedics. Also, as I'm sure ditchMD has seen, a lot of people who are suffering from things as serious as heart attacks will drive themselves to the hospital. This is not the safest course of action but it happens quite frequently. I understand Powell may have been upset that Moats did not stop immediately, but that was no justification for his treatment of a distraught man who was trying to see a close family member who was in her final moments of life.

Truth be told, if I were in exactly the same situation as Moats, I probably would have done exactly what he did. Your priorities and thinking change dramatically when you're in a situation like that. The Dallas Police Chief was clearly upset with Powell's decisions and conduct and apologized. http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... 9c080.html The power-tripping of the officer was nauseating, and I think most officers would've likely verified the situation quickly, offered their condolences and left the family alone.

hwybear wrote:

Certainly the officer can take 1/2 the blame, but Moats also deserves half the blame here too!!

I couldn't agree more. There are always two sides to any story and blame goes both ways. It's a shame that media tend to be biased against any and all public agencies.

Radar Identified wrote:

The power-tripping of the officer was nauseating, and I think most officers would've likely verified the situation quickly, offered their condolences and left the family alone.

The power trip was the real problem here. I can see a power trip if the guy was a criminal or had done something illegal besides making a right turn. But in this case the guy pulled into a hospital!

This mans mother-in-law died while the officer chose to be a jerk, make the guy wait even longer, issue him a ticket which he could have simply done afterwards. Let the man see his is mother in law off to death, and then you can give me a ticket.

On top of that, the officer got really rude and started yelling at the guy to shut his mouth and even told Moats that he can "Screw him Over"!!

So acting like an immature brat at times like this is gross misconduct.

And Yes, DitchMD is right, as the public might pull more bias and anger towards public agencies, but there needs to be a proper communication channel and curcumstance for everything.

Speaking of hospitals... I've seen Toronto and Peel constables give seriously injured people tickets in the emergency rooms. While those people might have violated the law, they already have to deal with:

1) A totalled vehicle

2) Insurance premium increases

3) Heavy bodily injuries with all the fixin's (surgeries, recovery, physio...)

If that doesn't teach'em not to break the law, nothing will. Adding a ticket to the mix is just adding insult to injury (quite literally).

FiReSTaRT wrote:

Speaking of hospitals... I've seen Toronto and Peel constables give seriously injured people tickets in the emergency rooms. While those people might have violated the law, they already have to deal with:

1) A totalled vehicle

2) Insurance premium increases

3) Heavy bodily injuries with all the fixin's (surgeries, recovery, physio...)

If that doesn't teach'em not to break the law, nothing will. Adding a ticket to the mix is just adding insult to injury (quite literally).

Not limited to those services.....every service does it and I have issued the offence notice in the hospital too. Not exempt just b/c they are injured.

I don't see why being injured should result in no tickets being given, especially in cases where those injuries were the result of the driver's own actions.

Radar Identified wrote:

This would tell me that perhaps someone was being rushed to the hospital and they either did not have time, or did not think, to call paramedics.

In America, it takes less time for a pizza to get to your house than for a paramedic team!

Just the fact that the officer did not realize that the guy stopped right at the hospital's parking lot, wasn't going anywhere, and still decided to not let the guy take his mother-in-law out of the vehicle (there are no cars, no traffic situation - no danger in getting out of the car whatsoever), while the driver is telling him that he has a person in need of immediate medical attention means that, yes, the driver is responsible for 50% of the traffic violation, but the cop is responsible 100% for the death of his family member who did not get medical attention because of him! What happened to "serve and protect"? There was none of that in the video, quite the opposite!

It's my understanding that the mother-in-law was already in the hospital for treatment, and they were rushing there for her last moments. Not saying that excuses the actions of the officer, but I don't think he caused the mother-in-law's death.

That Moats drove the rest of the way with his hazard lights on changes my view a bit. The officer should have recognised this as an intention to co-operate. If Moats had just rushed to the hospital with the officer in chase, I could understand wanting to detain him. From RI's post it sounds like something different happened here.

Damn media, never telling us exactly what had happened!

racer wrote:

In America, it takes less time for a pizza to get to your house than for a paramedic team!

Not much of an exaggeration there, in fact a lot of times that's true! Two years of living in Detroit, along with four years of working there, fully convinced me that while Canada's emergency responses may not be perfect, we've got it much better here. An example is Ontario's ORNGE Air Ambulance service, which has been largely responsible for saving countless lives, including people seriously injured in traffic collisions. Here's an article and a video:

http://www.healthzone.ca/health/article/609875

Squishy wrote:

It's my understanding that the mother-in-law was already in the hospital for treatment, and they were rushing there for her last moments.

Yes. I think that, even if the officer wanted to write Moats a ticket, he had many other options than acting the way he did. Detaining them for 13 minutes, and using the type of tone and language that he did, was not acceptable. I know Moats was exasperated, but he only asked the officer to hurry up, he never asked for a break.

RI that was a great video on air ambulance...thanx