I'd actually forgot about this story from a couple years ago...

My father in law had surgery for mesothelioma (8+ hours of surgery we were at the hospital the whole day). After he got out the doctor said things were looking good. WE went and visited him the next day and he was awake, things were improving. Then we get a call at 2 AM that he's crashed and is in CCU/ICU in a coma. We rushed to the hospital, going the speed I normally travel down the freeway (UCLA Medical is about 40 miles from Orange County). I stopped at a number of lights, even the ones closest to the hospital, because regardless of the situation at hand, it's my responsibility to not put others in risk. So when I'm speaking about the driver being in the wrong, I do speak from experience in my own life.

Once again, as I've stated each time, the officer should have handled the situation differently once he was approached by the nurse, but it was the drivers own fault for the series of events that occurred, period. Much of the blame goes on him for how he handled the emergency situation.

I can agree with most of what you've posted in this thread, but to be fair when cops don't abuse their power it doesn't make the news or youtube. I'm sure there are far more instances of cops doing the right thing than doing the wrong thing. Keeping the "mounting evidence" in perspective, I'd say that cops do what's right most of the time.

I think that depends on location.

And Chicago police, like Chicago politics, is off in it's own corrupt world and doesn't at all say anything about police (or even politics) outside Illinois.

True, but I was speaking generally not necessarily in Chicago, Dallas, Smalltown USA, etc.

Just because I want to know but where does it not happen? If not a big city or in a small town?

Were you told his death was imminent? If not, then it's not close to the same thing. Dire medical situation, yes.

Also, either you or I misunderstand what traffic lights are for. I have run traffic lights in emergency situations late at night when I have ensured that passage through the intersection is safe. I would do it again in the same situation without hesitation. At no time during these two incidents do I feel I ever put anyone at risk, either the other occupants of my vehicle or anyone else on the road.

I thought a cop had a small racing group that was family based and postponed it to go see his dying mom. None of that interested me at all, so I didn't open this thread until last night after my brother told me about it. Could we in the future be more careful about thread titles for people that are positive minded. Thanks

Oh, and for the record, Dallas Police Chief David Kunkle strongly disagrees with those of you defending the officer. And not in the standard "I guess I have to fire this guy because of the public outrage and media coverage" language, either.

Dallas - Unfair Park - DPD Chief David Kunkle Expresses His Embarrassment Over Ryan Moats Incident


http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcont...D975T9G82.html


Caught on tape: Cop stops NFL player from seeing his dying mother-in-law in Dallas - 3/27/09 - Los Angeles-Southern California-LA Breaking News, Weather, Traffic, Sports - abc7.com


Police Chiefs don't use language like this when they're just putting out the flames. Kunkle is pissed, and he has more information on what happened than any of us.

His #1 priority is how this impacts police interactions going forward. This stuff being blown out of proporition gives motorists a confidence and a sense of defiance when pulled over, which can lead to difficult and dangerous situations. When people feel a moral superiority over police officers in general (it doesn't take much, it's already been expressed in this thread), it emboldens them to act like punks during police interactions, because they feel any negative result must be 100% someone else's fault.

And notice the police chief seems most upset about the officer's tones and threats, which is something nobody can defend.

And police chiefs do use language like this all the time - they will almost never publicly defend an officer who has been involved in any controversial incident. That's just stupid, and dangerous. One of the most disgusting organized things I've ever seen from police is in Chicago, when they surrounded, in a show of solidarity, that officer who beat up the bartender at his court hearing. More typically, the officer who made a bad judgment is seperated until everything is resolved.

Every profession has both bad apples, and good people that make mistakes. The opportunities for mistakes in a police uniform are extraordinary. They don't get paid enough to be form a navy seal unit that acts without emotion and exhibits only perfect profesionalism.

I have no idea what you're trying to say here.

Yes actually he was on his deathbed, he died three days later when we decided to pull the plug.

Traffic lights are to control traffic, red light is stop, green is go. If a cop sees you run a light you should be ticketed, you are breaking the law.

Yup. Moates and his passengers were shits to this cop early on, but that's excused because he was a shit back.

I'm fine with the cop taking some discipline for how he handled the end of this, but I really want to see Moates take some responsibility for telling the cop to go find his insurance himself (for example), or the woman for yelling and waving her fist at him.

Everyone always uses the bad apples to castigate the entire group. Cops, priests and religious people, Boston sports fans. I guess it's human nature in that way. I have a deep respect for policemen while at the same time realize that some are in it for the wrong reasons.

Where exactly is this place where there aren't a lot of complaints about the police?

There is a history with them that goes way back.

Where exactly is the place where there aren't a lot of complaints about ANYTHING. People always complain and rarely compliment. It's somehow part of human nature.

That's not close to "she's going to die in the next 30 minutes."


So what about when there is no traffic (other than the car you're driving)?

Well compared to a place like Oakland some small town doesn't have near the amount of complaints about police brutality, abuse of power, etc. I asked where are these places where people complain about their police for something other then the things I mentioned.

Even in Aventura (a rich city in Miami) you hear stories of people getting their asses kicked by police.

I never said there was a place where there weren't a lot of complaints about the police. My point was that when cops are doing their job they aren't recognized; therefore, to say that there is a trend of abuse of power amongst the police based upon news snippets isn't necessarily true.

Take for example healthcare. Stories about docs doing their jobs don't make the papers. When they screw up, those stories make the papers.

If we were to go with your "shits" premise (I don't), then I'd argue it's excused because they were a grieving family whose relative was minutes from dying.

If your doing what you're suppose to do it isn't news... as much as I hate it bad news is very profitable.

I don't feel a moral superiority over police officers. An important note, though, is that I also don't feel that police officers have a moral superiority over me. Do you disagree?


Elsewhere Kunkle explicitly stated that Powell's only concern, after being informed that the story of the dying relative was true, should have been helping them get to the relative as quickly as possible in any way he could. Which is true. He's not only pissed because he was an asshole, he's also pointed out what an officer should do in this situation.


No. They don't use language like this all the time. I agree that they do publicly reprimand the officer in most situations, but not in these terms, not with this emotion.


Yes, which is why people that can't handle it should be removed from the force. There's a large gap between perfect professionalism and the way this officer handled this situation. I've also read this guy's blog, which is now removed from xanga.com, and he's an asshat. Great power, great responsibility and all that jazz. A police officer should serve and protect, and in this situation the officer was doing neither for anyone. As Kunkle said, officers have discretion on whether or not to issue tickets, etc.

Should a person that jaywalks to escape a building that's on fire be ticketed? By the letter of the law it's a violation that should be ticketed. Fortunately we have the ability to reason.

Again, their actions were reasonable and understandable, but also completely counterproductive to their goal. You really don't save that much time driving like a maniac in city streets.

If you run a red light, you're saving somewhere between 0 and 60 seconds, at the risk of losing 15+ minutes via traffic stop, and causing an accident (and if you run multiple lights and speed, your odds of geting stopped, or causing an accident go up). If you're under stress then maybe you're not capable of making that calcuation, and that's fine, but it's not anybody else's fault when your silly risk doesn't pay off.

If you want to put an officer in the position of trying to figure out whether you're the first person in months to tell him the truth about an excuse for breaking the law, that's your gamble.

Sigh. This is where the fundamental issue in this thread is: some people think it's okay to jump out of your car when a cop pulls you over, yell at him and wave your first, ignore orders to get back in the car, tell him to go get your insurance himself, drive for a full minute after he turns his lights and sirens on, etc etc etc. And the cop has to take it quietly.

Who suggested this in this thread?

I also think that an illuminating piece of data might be to watch dashcam video from the rest of this officer's day, or a day or two before. Would be interesting to see how this guy treats people he pulls over typically, how many folks try to pull one over on him, and the like. Would be illuminating to both sides likely.

It's the same type of situation. If you've ever experienced an emergency with a family member at the hospital there is very limited information provided most the time. All I knew was that he was in a coma or brain dead. Dying, going to die, brain dead, all the same thing and completed close and related to each other.

As for traffic, if I'm in a car, I'm traffic. There are no laws that let you run red lights because you look both ways, or because of emergencies. If there are let me know so I can cite them when I feel like it.

Your inputs are defective because most officers would not detain you for 15+ minutes. This particular guy got unlucky with the officer he drew.

The funny thing about all this, and probably part of why I'm so adamant about it, is that in one of the two situations I describe above where I violated traffic laws and ran traffic lights late at night was in Austin, Texas when my wife went into labor with our firstborn. The moment her labor started her contractions were two minutes apart and her water broke shortly thereafter. We called our midwife (who delivered at the hospital then) and she said we needed to get to the hospital as soon as possible. Risk of infection, incredibly short labor, etc.

I got tailed by a cop for running the light at 38th street and Lamar in Austin. This light is maybe 2 blocks from the hospital. The cop turned onto 38th street to follow me. Never turned on his lights. As soon as I entered the emergency room portion of the parking lot, he stopped his car, watched me get my wife out, then pulled away.

That is how not to be an asshole police officer. It was 2:30 in the morning, nobody else was on the roads (well, I passed a motorcyclist before that) and I wasn't endangering anyone. I was responding prudently to an emergency situation. Just like Moats was.

I have a feeling no one will change their mind, but honestly I felt as if they were pretty cool considering the circumstances.

To take a slightly different take from the longish car chase, I would give the cop benefit of the doubt if the chase had been short and ended at the hospital. He wouldn't have had time to think about why they weren't stopping and where they stopped. But because the chase was pretty long, he had time to think about it.

On the flipside, they probably should've stopped and I've seen instances where the cop would run ahead of the family with his lights on to clear traffic so they can get there faster.

Well, the post I quoted argued that their actions were not only excused, but that he disagreed that they were being "shits" (my word) to the officer while doing all of this. And all of those actions I listed were in the tape.

I just don't think it's reasonable to expect the cop to immediately flip a switch after the way he spends the first 3 minutes of that tape. Certainly by the time we're hitting the 12 or 13 minute mark he's in full denial mode, and deserves to be held to task for not listening to the nurse and other officer, but folks expecting him to just go "well then, okay, my mistake, see you later" at the 3:15 mark or so are delusional.

It was mentioned elsewhere, I'll mention it again: if you didn't have the rest of this story, and all you had were the first 3 minutes of that tape, what would your reaction be?

The exception is called discretion, reason, and common sense. Police officers are expected and authorized to exercise these abilities. I've known that since before Chief Kunkle came out and said as much with respect to this situation. So, for example, are district attorneys. The laws exist as a baseline. There are always exceptions. It's one of the basic reasons we are entitled to a jury by our peers. (edit - not the main reason, I realized this could be misintepreted)

Yes, in the vast majority of cases, the law should be followed and is a good rule. But there are times when breaking laws is acceptable. And emergency situations in which the act of breaking the law does not infringe on anyone else's rights or safety are the perfect example.

This is devolving into one of the 5 dumbest threads in FOFC history.

I don't think the cop did anything wrong at the beginning.. over time he morphed into an asshole though.

My reaction is this: Who gives a shit about the first 3 minutes of the tape?

The cop acted like a douche for 20 minutes or so. If he had responded appropriately before that (like the critical moment where the hospital nurse and OTHER POLICE OFFICER vouch for the story) then there wouldn't be as much of a firestorm.

I always love when the thread police make an appearance.

lemme see your insurance

And as the chase gets longer, what he's thinking is "what are they running from and trying to get away from me?", not "what legitimate reason would they have for ignoring my signal?", given that probably 99.5% of the reasons people don't pull over are not legitimate. And the longer the car runs, the more likely the guy is to pull a gun when they finally do corner him.

Moates just happened to be in that .5% (my made up statistic, but I think I'm in the ballpark).

dola-

I will not let you go to lunch until you provide it.

Go find it yourself.

Criminals usually have their hazards on to alert everyone to their presence.

I'm glad it worked out for you, but you defintitely took a risk with your wife's health. Probably a better risk than Moates did, since you were only 2 blocks from the hospital, as opposed to 1+ mile, and you had an actual medical emergency, and not just an emotional emergency.

If you make major decisions based on an assumption that everyone else will act perfectly and the way you expect them to, you're going to get burned.

Try pulling out a 'I'm driving the speed limit and have to obey all rules of the road" line to a wife that is in contractions next to you in the car.

Because it sets the stage for the rest? Am I overreacting? Possibly, I'm just sick of these police brutality stories that act like the victim did nothing wrong, then watching the victim act like a jerk to the cop, or in some cases try to assault the cop, and everyone excuses it, usually because the early reports skip the setup. Assuming the setup is ever mentioned at all.

I mean, the first story has quotes from both sides, and conveniently skips over Moates' "go find my insurance yourself" bit to help goad everyone into attacking the officer. There's a whole side to this story that the folks attacking the cop want to just blindly skip over. It takes two to tango in most cases. And folks are actually presenting excuses for Moates behavior and claiming he was fine in what he did because of the circumstances. I disagree.


Agreed. I just don't think Moates and the woman should be getting off scot-free for antagonizing him in the first place.

I agree with you in spirit, and hope an officer would be understanding in a situation such as this. I don't feel it's acceptable to break laws, I do think depending on the circumstances they can be forgiven, but it's still not acceptable. If that makes any sense.

I don't know how many times I can possibly say that such actions would be understandable and reasonable, and someone shouldn't get locked up for such behavior.

Maybe you should do some practice drives or something beforehand, because understandable or not, speeding and running red lights with your pregnant wife in the car ain't a great idea.

For those of you that have had wives that were having contractions, etc and took the rules of the road into your own hands (yes I'm being dramatic but that's what you did). Why did you choose to drive, instead of calling 911 and having an ambulance take her or the person in?

I guess it depends on where you live. If you live in Atlanta, you might as well register the kid for little league while waiting for the ambulance.

I have a question that has nothing to do with Ryan Moats' situation, so it would not be productive to ask me how my question relates to it. It doesn't.

Picture yourself driving alone on city streets at 2am. You notice a car behind you, and it follows all of your turns for 10 minutes. You can't see how many people are in the car. You haven't encountered any stop signs or red traffic lights, so you've had no reason to stop. You get suspicious and try to turn onto a side road to see if it's just coincidence or if you are really being followed. The car turns along with you. You try weaving down different side streets and the car continues to match your every move. Trying to play it safe, you decide to drive to the nearest police station. You're eight blocks away from the police station, and the car is still on your tail. You reach a red light.

Do you stop?

Actually, since my question had nothing to do with Ryan Moats, I should have started a new thread, but please forgive me since I'm new to this board.

I turn right. That's legal in NC to do after a quick stop like Moats did ;-)

To answer the question more directly. That may depend. I might run it, I might stop and watch what the car does and be prepared to run if it tries to pull up alongside (although that risks a rear-end, but given that they haven't tried to run me off the road yet I might take it). If possible I'm pulling out the phone and dialing 911 though.

And yes, if it's an unmarked police car who is getting ready to turn his lights on the moment I run a light, that cop is a shit and should be fired.

Incendiary jackass response: Obviously you should stop and call an ambulance.

Real response: I would slow down to make sure no one was coming, and then run the light.

For the record, I tried to take as much ambiguity out of my story as I could, but this was a scenario I didn't even consider. So I'd just like to point out that I was not suggesting that it was an unmarked police car following you. I can see how it might look like I was leading to that, though.

If your question has nothing to do with Ryan Moats, how come you're the only one who spelled his name right?

Busted. :(

Anyway, the cops probably only cancelled the ticket because they were worried this would happen to them:

http://ohmygov.com/blogs/general_new...-in-urine.aspx

And for the record, it's still a good scenario to consider. It was a well-thought-out post.

Funny story. This actually happened to me when I was in high school. I was in a city I knew nothing about and pretty much lost. My friends and I had gone to a playoff football game for our HS and we were unable to find the freeway so I just started driving towards home. We were stopped at a light and all the sudden a car came up beside us and about 4 guys got out. One of the guys approached my door (my window was closed) and started telling me to roll down my window. I was extremely scared for the life of myself and my friends. (I even noticed my door was unlocked). I said screw it, looked forward for traffic and ran the light and speed off. I broke the law and honestly I would do it again, doesn't make it right, but I had to do it for the sake of not being jumped by a gang. If an officer had pulled me over for doing it I would have been happy since he probably would have saved our asses from getting jumped as well, since it would have been pretty obvious because they were out of their car. I still think about the events that took place that night and what might have happened.

And I have to say, i'll need to watch the video again, because I certainly didn't see any fist waving. I actually they were pretty calm considering the circumstances. They were calmer than I would have been. The lady says, "My mom is dying. Don't you understand?" and Moats keeps pleading with the officer to let him go because his mother in law was dying. So no, I don't think they were shits from my view of the tape.

There's plenty of good reasons to break traffic laws. Just don't be in denial of the fact that it might cost you $50 and 15-20 minutes of your life. Your good reason doesn't abate the risk of that, or a traffic accident.

Pull out your gun and shoot the asshole.

Ding, someone gets it.

I'm agree.

If I think guy behind me is not a cop and have sincere belief that I'm in danger, I carefully run the red light in hopes that a cop would pull me over.

If it was an undercover cop, I would say that I had a rational fear I was being followed and was driving to the police station for that reason. If he still gave me a ticket, I would challenge the ticket in court (if not more).

Huh? He didn't say anything I disagree with. How many times does it need to be said that I don't have a problem with the officer stopping them?

I would have done the same thing as Moats and I would have expected to pay the ticket. The only thing I would not have expected is for the 15-20 minutes to have to take place while my mother in law was dying. And I think that's a reasonable expectation, because I don't think most officers would act the same was as this guy did.

What are we arguing over then, just about everyone here that the 15-20 minutes after the fact was wrong. And just about everyone here agrees that the officer was in the wrong with the way acted as well once the situation was known.

I think you guys are going in circles.

Nascar.

Within the constraints of my scenario, however, you don't know how many people are in the car. If every person in that car is intending to hurt you (and I'm not saying that they are), I'm not sure you could pick them all off if there are more than two or three of them. Maybe you can. I don't know anything about guns or your proficiency with them. Just remember that you're only approaching a red light and you're eight blocks from the police station which would probably cause the followers to flee if they're malicious.

this thread....

I was trying to be funny. However I would have sped a way toward safety not necessarily toward the police.

I would definitely stop at the stop light, and if someone started to get out of the car, then I would drive away.

Well, some people think it was okay to detain him, some people think they were "shits" to the cop, some people were heavily critical of Moats' decision to run the light. I disagree with all of those. But I've said multiple times in this thread that the officer was right to pull them over.

I thought maybe you were trying to be funny, but I figured I'd give a serious answer in case you were serious. In the original story, I specifically mentioned that you couldn't see the number of people in the car because I know some people would shoot if they knew it was one person following them.

But yeah, I get that it was meant to be funny.

No, I lowered the risk to my wife's health. The medical professionals had told me it was critical to get her to the hospital as soon as possible. When I ran the light, there was nobody within a half-mile on the cross street (Lamar) coming toward the intersection. The probability of my running the light causing an accident was essentially zero. Weighed against the factual risk to her health of any wasted time getting her medical attention, it's clear the right decision was made.


Because I was told to get her to the hospital as soon as possible. Not only was I quicker to the hospital than an ambulance would have been to my house, but I have since learned that ambulances don't have the necessary equipment given her situation (water's broken, infection risk, so you need a fetal monitor, etc.). Which I admittedly only assumed at the time.


I find it borderline insane that you think running the light in that situation "wasn't right". I can guarantee you that if you asked a police officer what you should do in that situation, he would tell you to take off and call the police.

Your self righteousness doesn't help.

?

Lots of people run red lights a block away from the hospital with their hazards on, park into said hospital, and let their passengers go into the hospital, all so they can use that as an excuse to run that specific red light?

That's some interesting logic you (and perhaps the officer) believe. The officer needs to be more aware of his surroundings than that.

By wasn't right, I mean it's still broke the law, right wrong on indifferent. You can dress up a pig and throw some lipstick on it, and it's still a pig.

I think we need to all just hug it out.

Nope, I'm not saying that at all. That's neither my logic nor the police officer's.

And I love how the red light is getting closer to the hospital the more this thread progresses. Now it's only a block away!

I think the red light was in front of the parking spot... Wasn't it? :P

The red light gets closer and closer as Moats' wife's behavior gets more and more outrageous. Now she's waving her fists at the officer. When we get to the next page of the thread, she will have tackled the officer and pulled a gun on him. When it gets there, I will agree she was in the wrong.

I'm pretty sure the red lights were on top of the cop car.

I'll admit it was really wrong of her to carve a B into the officer's face.

1) Dallas newspaper:

2) If that's not your point then what do you mean by "If you want to put an officer in the position of trying to figure out whether you're the first person in months to tell him the truth about an excuse for breaking the law" You are suggesting that someone would run the light near the hospital with hazards, park in the hospital, and have his passengers act frantic and run into said hospital just so he can have an excuse about running the red light? Or just maybe, the officer doesn't have much to "figure out."

I think the celebrating is bad, but I also don't know how they feel. I mean a cop did execute a kid a month or so ago and they probably see this as payback. It's wrong but what happens when cops don't eliminate their bad seeds.

Give it a few more days, by then the cop will have invaded their home and dragged them outside in chains, tasered 'em, and then gone instead & murdered the cancer patient as she knitted a tapestry containing the cure for cancer. And I'm not even going to mention the unmentionable thing he did to the family's one legged dog.

Well, it may be only semantics to some people, but to me it's a very important distinction. What is illegal is not always wrong; what is legal is not always right.

Isn't that Oakland cop not working for the force any more? Last I checked he wasn't.

Unless you're assuming that he was making comments at that morning's briefings about how he couldn't wait to kill a black guy that day.

Huge risk. I mean why would anyone risk a ticket for a minor traffic violation when their kid's life is hanging in the balance.

They definitely don't perfectly overlap, no question. But you're still subject to the inconviences and penalties associated with laws, even if you don't find the illegal conduct morally wrong.

This isn't exactly on-topic with this thread, but I think some people have the idea that since something isn't morally wrong, then they shouldn't be penalized or inconvienced for it. So in that context, when it suits them, they completely ignore the fact that law and morality don't overlap.

That's why a lot of the arguments here, and in this kind of context, are missing each other. When someone says, "breaking the law causes you to get pulled over", and someone else says, "try saying that when your wife is in labor", that second comment is completely non-responsive to the first one. You can be stressed by the labor situation, and make a bad judgment to get break laws, causing you to get pulled over, a risking the health of your wife. Doesn't make you a horrible person. But as in many areas of life, being calmer and cooler might be better.

Six pages and nobody pointed out to Noop that Emily Dickinson wasn't English? We can get outraged about police asshattery but not poor historical literature understanding???

Oakland cops have a pretty bad reputation for police brutality and doing nothing about it. Perhaps if they had shown a history of cleaning up their unit, people wouldn't have been so irate, or an officer wouldn't think it's alright to execute someone.

If a law is broken but mitigating cirumstances make clear to any reasonable person that the breaking of the law was acceptable and even preferred in the citizen's situation, then I expect my law enforcement officers, or failing on their part then my district attorneys, of failing on their part then my local jury members to dismiss the charges without punishment.

And fortunately for me, the vast majority of people in charge agree, and that's why, for example, Moats' ticket has been dismissed and why I was not ticketed for running the red light in my situation.

So, yes, logically I am still subject to the inconveniences and penalties associated with laws. But I will protest the application of those penalties and any excessive inconveniences in these kinds of situations. Both with my voice and my vote (we elect judges and DAs around here, not sure about everywhere). There is always room for common sense and compassion.

I get the feeling there are a lot of fans of the completely ludicrous "zero tolerance" approach by school administrators these days. You know, the kind of approach that results in kids getting strip-searched because they are suspected of having extra strength ibuprofen at school.

And those people are complete idiots.

Well he never said she was from England, just that after studying here that he thought it was an English thing.

I agree, but until I've had a friend executed by the police, it's tough to put myself in their shoes.

Again off-topic, but elected DAs and judges is an absolutely horrible idea. We really don't want decisions in criminal justice motivated by election concerns and campagin contributions.

Everything above traffic stops, such excuses and mitigations are built into the law. Necessity is a legal defense (though the standard is much higher than a lot of criminals seem to assume).

With traffic infractions, we're talking about small fines, and we'd rather not have people think they're above the law because of their own personal emergency (that usually isn't really an emergency). So it's a strict liability thing. You don't have full due process because you don't have any risk of going to jail. In a practical sense, like you said, the true emergency-based tickets get dumped, and nobody's saying the guy's ticket should have held up here.

I don't agree with zero tolerance for most things. I guess I look at it this way, if I endanger other people with my actions I'm the one responsible, thus I am going to try and not break laws or rules of the road. But if I break a law because of mitigating factors such as fearing for my life, I'm going to accept the consequences of my actions. Do I wish the law and courts forgive me breaking the law, yes, but I shouldn't expect it.

Or a black, or a mexican, or a white man, or etc.

It's those same types of generalizations that lead us to this type of mentality.