O/T: More Discusting

[Lew Hodgett]

The cop in Dallas.

Wonder what would have happened if the football player had been white?

Lew

[Swingman]

"Lew Hodgett" wrote

You can bet that card will be played if it hadn't already. With the Rambo cops of this generation, raised in a zero tolerance environment throughout school, to offset the rampant stupidity of the administrators, and with no compassion taught on video games or TV, probably the same thing.

In the old days in this state an immediate escort would have been provided to the hospital regardless of race, I've seen it happen firsthand ... this cop should be fired on the spot, regardless.

[Tim Daneliuk]

He would have been playing for the Canadian Football League.

[Robatoy]

Link to TFA?

[Lew Hodgett]

"Rambo" says it all.

Cop's mug shot speaks volumes.

Can't say the same about Cleveland.

About '57-'58 time frame, my future brother-in-law was taking night school classes and I was at his house.

Phone call came in he had been hit by a car while crossing the street and taken to the hospital.

Get there as quick as you can.

No other info available.

I was the most rational and elected to drive.

Got stopped for speeding on way to hospital.

Explained the situation and asked for an escort.

No deal, got a ticket and a warning.

Would have been okay except was driving during a 30 day suspension.

Eventually, everything worked out.

Yep.

Lew

[Swingman]

Train a police force like you do the military and they will quickly look for an excuse to revert to military operations to put that training into practice ... problem is, the "enemy" is the population. Look at what IRS swat teams have perpetrated in the past.

I'm far past being naïve enough to believe that this is simply a by-product of providing them sufficient fire power to equal the gangster element.

[Robatoy]

[Charlie Self]

There's some kind of odd mindset, for sure. It reminds me of a group of para-Marines, Recon guys who went a step further.

Biggest scare I ever got in the Corps was landing at Pearl Harbor, and hearing our unit assignments called out. They called the unit assigned first, Recon, etc. During the Recon roll call, I heard Self! It turned out to be a buck sergeant name Roy Self, whom I never did meet.

[HeyBub]

Who knows? This episode has been discussed on the "tx.guns" newsgroup.

My view is that Moats should simply have said "Screw you, John Law" and walked off. Almost anything the cop does at that point would have guaranteed him a career making Slurpees at the Stop-N-Rob.

First, the cop sure is no physical match for an NFL running back (5'10", 230 lbs). Second, if the cop decided to deploy his Taser or pistol, the mayors of both Dallas and Plano, along with the police chiefs, would have been on the scene within the hour. The governor of Texas would be holding a press conference before dawn.

Remember, Moat's wife was told, at gunpoint, to get back in the car. She said "Not by the hair of my chinney-chin-chin" and went on into the hospital. I think Moats should have done the same and left the cop in the empty parking lot with his ticket book.

The cop should have known that traffic laws are trumped by "exigent circumstances" and certainly a mission of mercy would qualify.

[-MIKE-]

That's Moat's size, right, not the cop's?

Really? I don't think that law is on the book in any state. :-)

[Ed Pawlowski]

[J. Clarke]

Google "moats powell" and you'll find quite a lot including several links to the police video of the stop.

Basically Officer Powell is badly in need of an attitude adjustment.

[Lew Hodgett]

"HeyBub" wrote

Even today, a black man telling a white "John Law" to "screw you" in the south.

You won't get me to cover that action, much less a black man.

I may be wrong, but I doubt it.

Lew

[Bored Borg]

On Sat, 28 Mar 2009 19:46:41 +0000, Lew Hodgett wrote (in article ):

What's all this about then?

Didn't see/hear anything relevant on BBC news.... gotta link?

[Lee Michaels]

"J. Clarke" wrote

I was unaware of that story. Unbelievable!

What I find troubling about it most of all is simply that an otherwise reasonably good police department could be tarnished by this bozo's actions. I kept thinking over and over again, LAWSUIT!!, LAWSUIT!!, LAWSUIT!!, LAWSUIT!!, LAWSUIT!!, LAWSUIT!!, LAWSUIT!!, LAWSUIT!!, LAWSUIT!!, LAWSUIT!!, LAWSUIT!!

This moron is so clueless that he did this on camera. Did he really think that his actions could be justified in any way? And since those videos are public records, there is no question as to what actually happened. He obviously did not think that he did anything wrong. He even bragged on camera afterwards of falsifying a report on a chase because it was done in violation of department guidelines.

Anybody that stupid and clueless is an incredible liability to any police department. His law enforcement career is over. And the Dallas PD is on the hook for a big settlement. The city attorneys must be having nightmares now.

Ryan Moats and his wife will be on Good Morning America on monday morning. This young man is the poster boy for hard work, study and strong suppoerter of his community and schools. He deserved better.

[Charlie Self]

On another forum, I read that other cops on the force are angry at the chief for apologizing, and feel the cop did the right thing. No cite that I could find.

I hope it is wrong, because his attitude is one that should be strongly discouraged, to the point of elimination, in any police force.

[HeyBub]

The law IS on the books in every state and the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. It has been upheld in every federal circuit and by the Supreme Court. Generally it is used to sanction some police action for which a delay would be fatal, such as the time taken to obtain a search warrant.

Definition: Generally, an emergency, a pressing necessity, or a set of circumstances requiring immediate attention or swift action. In the criminal procedure context, exigent circumstances means:

"An emergency situation requiring swift action to prevent imminent danger to life or serious damage to property, or to forestall the imminent escape of a suspect, or destruction of evidence. There is no ready litmus test for determining whether such circumstances exist, and in each case the extraordinary situation must be measured by the facts known by officials." People v. Ramey, 545 P.2d 1333,1341 (Cal. 1976).

[Ed Pawlowski]

He probably thought he'd take the video back to the station and show his fellow officers how he took care of that (fill in ethnic slur here) and wrote him up. They'd all have a good laugh and pat him on the back.

[Upscale]

I'm guessing that Powell was legally allowed to do what he did, but morally and humanely, he showed incredibly poor judgement. Even if he's not fired, any career ambitions he might have had have likely hit an immovable roadblock. At most, I'd say the rest of his days will be spent as record keeper in some evidence locker.

[-MIKE-]

That is pertaining to law enforcement breaking their own rules. I took what you wrote to mean there are laws which allow citizens to ignore traffic laws in an emergency.