As a storm of outrage gathered over his department, Dallas Police Chief David Kunkle called a news conference Thursday to apologize for the behavior of an officer who detained a distressed family outside a hospital emergency room.
Kunkle said Officer Robert Powell had been placed on paid administrative leave in connection with the incident last week, in which he stopped a family rushing to visit a dying mother, keeping them for 13 minutes to write a traffic ticket.
The woman died before two of the family members were able to see her.
"I am embarrassed and disappointed by the behavior of one of our police officers," the chief told a packed audience of media outlets that included Inside Edition. "His behavior, in my opinion, did not exhibit the common sense, discretion, the compassion that we expect our officers to exhibit."
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.
After seeing the video earlier this week, several senior police commanders knew they had a public relations crisis on their hands. A Plano police officer who was present at the March 17 incident had reported it to a superior, who had reported it to a Dallas police supervisor.
After news of the video broke late Wednesday, irate calls and e-mails started spilling into police headquarters.
Read on.
1 comment:
Somethings you don't get a do over. Now the officier was completely wrong. I remember my Dad was taken to the hospital and I left work driving a friends car. I drove as fast as I could and went through ever right light and never gave a thought about police. I was there to see him taken into the hospital but he never woke up. It's the one thing all of us would like a chance to do is say " I love you and good by". This cop stopped these two from having their last chance. This was not police work it was personal for a quota. All involved have to live with this and believe me no apology or money could make up for what these two young people have lost. This is the world we live of good and evil. It's the heart that shows who we are and this cop showed he had no heart.
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