When someone close to you is dying, you want to be there. And when you are not there by his or her side, you want to get there as fast as possible. That’s all Houston Texans running back Ryan Moats was trying to do.
Most of us would be sympathetic to someone for running a red light if they were rushing to the hospital to see their dying mother or mother-in-law. But not Dallas police officer Robert Powell who pulled Moats and his wife over as they failed to come to a complete stop at a red light. No one was hurt as the Moats couple rushed into a hospital parking lot to see their dying mother, but Officer Powell still stopped the two as they tried to hurry into the hospital to get to Moats’ mother-in-law before she died.
Moats’ wife, Tamisha, ignored the officers warning and went in the hospital anyway. Yet Officer Powell detained Ryan Moats and drew his gun on him. Ultimately, he detained Moats long enough so that Moats could not say goodbye to his mother-in-law before she died. Reportedly, Tamisha did get a few seconds with her mother before she passed on.
Now, I could pull the race card—and I will. Because anyone who tells me it didn’t have something to do with race is only fooling themselves.
While detaining Moats, the white Officer Powell suggested that he could “screw over” Moats if the NFL players’ attitude was not “right.”
What?
Yeah, that seems objective, thought-out and LEGAL! Come on now, you don’t say that to someone who you are giving the benefit of the doubt–or excuse me, assuming innocence until proven guilty. As you can see in the video, Moats tells Powell that his mother is dying, but Powell doesn’t care, saying, to a nurse and another officer trying to persuade the officer to let him go, that he’s “almost done” with Moats.
“Almost done?” Yes, because the severity of Moats’ traffic ticket outweighs that of his mother’s death.
The nurse even told Officer Powell that they were barely keeping his mother-in-law alive and Powell ignored the warning.
Now, I could simply characterize this as a simple abuse of power and idiotic judgment on the part of Officer Powell. But when Powell showed no remorse, and went through with writing a ticket in those circumstances, despite several persons pleas for him not to, that made his actions personal. He saw someone giving him “poor attitude” and not submitting to his authority, and he couldn’t imagine letting that slide—no matter how dire the situation was.
So I will pull the race card, and I will say that this was yet another act of the type of bigotry and intolerance that continues to go on in this country, no matter who the President is. Can I prove Powell was acting in a racist manner beyond a shadow of a doubt?
Of course not.
But using the same short-sighted, narrow-minded, insular judgment that Powell used, I too will stick to my “guns,” and call a spade a spade.