No Compassion At All?

I have to admit that I was quite pissed off when I heard this story this morning on the radio....



Officer Delayed NFL
Player at Hospital
Created On: Thursday, 26 Mar 2009, 7:29 AM CDT

PLANO - A white Dallas police officer who delayed Houston Texans' running back Ryan Moats, who is black, from visiting his mother-in-law before she died in a Plano hospital was reassigned to dispatch pending an investigation.

Moats, his wife and other family members rushed from their suburban Dallas home to Baylor Regional Medical Center at Plano during the early hours of March 18 after getting word around midnight that Moats' mother-in-law, Jonetta Collinsworth, was dying. She had breast cancer.

Dallas-Fort Worth station WFAA-TV, which obtained video from a dashboard camera inside the officer's vehicle, reported that Moats' vehicle rolled through a red light en route to the hospital. Officer Robert Powell, 25, stopped the SUV in the hospital's parking lot outside the emergency room.

Moats explained to the officer that he waited until there was no traffic before proceeding through the red light and that his mother-in-law was dying, right then.

The dashboard video revealed an intense exchange in which the officer threatened to jail Moats.

"Get in there," said Powell, yelling at 27-year-old Tamishia Moats, wife of Ryan Moats, as she exited the car. "Let me see your hands!"

"Excuse me, my mom is dying," Tamishia Moats said. "Do you understand?"

She and her great aunt ignored the officer and rushed inside the hospital to see Collinsworth.

Hospital security guards arrived and told Powell that the Moatses' relative really was upstairs dying. Powell checked inside his vehicle to determine whether Ryan Moats had any outstanding warrants. He found none.

Another hospital staffer came out and spoke with a Plano police officer who had arrived. The Plano officer told Powell the relative was indeed dying, in an unsuccessful attempt to intervene.

By the time the 26-year-old NFL player received a ticket and a lecture from Powell, at least 13 minutes had passed. When he and Collinsworth's father entered the hospital, they learned Jonetta Collinsworth was dead, The Dallas Morning News reported Wednesday in its online edition.

Dallas Police Assistant Chief Floyd Simpson said Powell, who was hired in January 2006, told police officials that he believed that he was doing his job.

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

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

"I think he should lose his job," said Ryan Moats, a Dallas native.

The ticket was dismissed, Lt. Andy Harvey told WFAA-TV.

Collinsworth was buried Saturday in Louisiana.