Dallas Police Chief David Kunkle stood in front of a dozen news cameras this afternoon at police headquarters to apologize for the behavior of an officer who stopped a family outside a hospital emergency room.
Kunkle said Officer Robert Powell has been placed on paid administrative leave in connection with an incident last week in which he stopped a family rushing to visit a dying mother, detaining them for 13 minutes to write a traffic ticket.
“His behavior in my opinion, did not exhibit the common sense, discretion, the compassion that we expect our officers to exhibit,” the chief told a packed audience of media outlets that included Inside Edition.
During the traffic stop, caught on the officer’s in-car camera, Powell berated the driver, 26-year-old NFL running back Ryan Moats, and threatened him with arrest for running a traffic light.
“I can screw you over,” said Powell, 25. “I’d rather not do that.”
At one point during today’s news conference, Kunkle seemed to restrain himself from being even more candid with his views on the incident.
“When we in the command staff reviewed the tapes,” he said, “we were embarrassed, disappointed — it’s hard to find the right words and still be professional in my role as a police chief.”
The chief also praised Moats and his family for how they handled the officer’s behavior.
“They exercised extraordinary patience, restraint, dealing with the behavior of our officer,” Kunkle said. “At no time did Mr. Moats identify himself as an NFL football player or expect any kind of special consideration. He handled himself very, very well.”
Moats rolled through a red light as he and his wife were en route to Baylor Regional Medical Center at Plano. A Dallas police squad car pulled their SUV over near the hospital's emergency entrance.
Moats and his wife implored the officer to let them hurry on to the bedside of her ill mother.
“You really want to go through this right now?” Moats pleaded. “My mother-in-law is dying. Right now!”
His wife, Tamishia Moats, said Powell "was pointing a gun at me as soon as I got out of the car. It was the weirdest feeling because I’ve never had a gun pointed at me before under those circumstances.”
Powell then spent long minutes writing Moats a ticket and threatening him with arrest.
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Pullling over is one thing...drawing a gun....well....that's a bit much.
Zale Lipshy or St. Paul, yeah!
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