Sometimes The Police Need to Police The Police

I am sure that many by now have heard about Houston Texans Running Back Ryan Moats and his incident last week involving Officer Robert Powell from the Dallas Police Department. Moat’s mother-in-law was dying in the hospital and he and his family were rushing there to be with her.
The officer pulled over Moat’s SUV for rolling through a red light and pulled out his gun and threatened Moats with jail as the player and his family pleaded to be allowed to go inside the hospital. Powell continued writing Moats a ticket and lecturing him even after a fellow officer confirmed that Moats’ mother-in-law was dying.

This whole scene was caught on the dashboard video. At one point the officer was overheard as saying “I can screw you over,” “I’d rather not do that. Your attitude will dictate everything that happens.”. Sadly Moat’s mother-in-law died before Powell allowed Moats to go inside the hospital. Since then Powell has resigned under his own accord but by doing so while still under investigation can not be rehired by the department. An internal investigation is still ongoing.

We have rules in sport and rules in society to protect people and their rights, and make for a safe environment. Much like plays on the field sometimes it isn’t black and white. There are times when there is a grey area and common sense needs to come into play. Clearly in this instance common sense nor compassion were used. What is also an interesting side note to this is that had this not happened to an NFL player and his family nobody would have seen this. Makes you wonder how often something like this happens.