The Atlantic - Latest Comments in Dallas Police Officer Apologizes To The Moats Family

Re: Dallas Police Officer Apologizes To The Moats Family

combat efficiency - we are win — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 21:46:10 -0000

This is an unfortunate situation between an honest man and an irritated cop. As reserve PD, I can't tell you how many times I get the "My mom's in the hospital!" or "my brother's really sick" or some other trashy excuse that doesn't check out, and thus, ends up wasting my time and the driver's...but I'm much more infuriated at me losing my time.

The officer probably thought dude was BSing. Hell, in all honesty, I probably would have too. However, where he messed up, and where an officer of the law should NEVER fail is identifying & verifying the situation. This officer failed to verify, and because of it, he denied that man's entire family to see their mother. And even worse, when it was verified, he continued writing the ticket.

WTF? Suggests some ego punching went down, he didn't take his operator seriously, and just overtly failed at aiding and abetting citizens in crisis aka being a cop.

Re: Dallas Police Officer Apologizes To The Moats Family

Liza — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 19:13:24 -0000

I seriously doubt that the police officer's resignation was his own idea. I also suspect that the apology was something that he did to save his job, but it wasn't enough. A three year cop who demonstrates on video that he has the wrong temperament for police work is very expendable. They probably told him to take a hike, and I doubt they gave him more than a "voluntary resignation" code on his termination papers. It's more than he deserves.

Re: Dallas Police Officer Apologizes To The Moats Family

Ta-Nehisi Coates — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 18:47:06 -0000

This is a blog. Most blogs work on hyper-links. There is a hyperlink in the post. Had you clicked on it you would have found a story explaining the details of the case.

Re: Dallas Police Officer Apologizes To The Moats Family

Dick — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 18:37:39 -0000

I read most of what's written on The Atlantic site, along with 3 or 4 newspapers, plus a bunch of others. However, until I did a Google search, I had no idea what you were talking about. AFAIK, I never heard the name Moats before. Once I found a story, I had heard about it, but I didn't know the name of any of the people involved. What ever happened to the basic rule of Journalism that said you told everything the reader needs to know in the first paragraph?

Re: Dallas Police Officer Apologizes To The Moats Family

Andrew Fly — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 17:29:28 -0000

Apparently, the same cop harassed Zach Thomas's wife last summer, but not wanting to make it a big deal, they didn't file a report. When they heard about Moats situation, and it being the same cop, they filed a report.

Re: Dallas Police Officer Apologizes To The Moats Family

russell — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 16:13:59 -0000

Yes, they handled it very well, another reason the media picked up on it. I probably would have gone batshit.

Re: Dallas Police Officer Apologizes To The Moats Family

Somali Canuck — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 16:11:34 -0000

The video shows that this kind of things happens all the time. Unfortunaly for Officer Poweel, he messed up with an NFL player. The Moats were classier that i would ever been. I would ask for his firing and sued the Dallas Police Department for it too!

Re: Dallas Police Officer Apologizes To The Moats Family

russell — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 16:10:48 -0000

The cop is s cop. This kind of thing happens all the time.

Re: Dallas Police Officer Apologizes To The Moats Family

Justin — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 15:39:24 -0000

I'll agree and disagree with everyone's sentiments. The reason this has gotten this much attention is not so much that Moats plays in the NFL, but more that he is a man of means. In that he has the ability to hire an attorney who can subpoena or at least threaten to subpoena this officers PVS tape. If Moats was Joe Blow off the streets the Dallas PD would've been extremely reluctant to turn the video over. However if there was no video this would’ve barely made a blip on the national news radar. This cop will catch on in some small Texas town and in a few years we will all have forgotten him, I just hope he truly understands what he did wrong, and that is fail to use discretion in enforcing his power as a law enforcement officer.

Re: Dallas Police Officer Apologizes To The Moats Family

Stacy — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 15:06:00 -0000

No, but I don't think TNC ever would have KNOWN about it if he wasn't an NFL player. That's the difference.

Re: Dallas Police Officer Apologizes To The Moats Family

rb — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 15:00:47 -0000

Good on the Moats family. To my mind, Powell's loss of badge/job is just, but it's no easy thing to gain notoriety like this, and Powell will pay dearly in humiliation and severely damaged career prospects. I really admire Tamishia Moats' ability to see past her (100% justified) outrage to the 'human being' on the other side of this confrontation.

On the other hand, under-publicized is Earl Johnson's grievance here. That he felt he needed to stay with Ryan Moats to prevent the latter's being hurt or worse is in some ways the most heartrending part of this travesty. In a slightly better world, the fact that that feeling was completely reasonable given current realities would garner much greater attention.

Johnson may prefer to keep his feelings private, or perhaps at this early date it would be difficult to maintain the considerable poise Tamishia and Ryan show in this video. I know that's how it'd be for me.

Re: Dallas Police Officer Apologizes To The Moats Family

tx10zing — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:59:06 -0000

I don't buy that. Media gatekeepers saw the video and were outraged by the wrong done to a fellow human, not the wrong done to a pro athlete. Do you think TNC posted that link just because the driver is a ballplayer? I don't.

Re: Dallas Police Officer Apologizes To The Moats Family

freaktown — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:54:58 -0000

it's not so much the fact that he kept the man from seeing his dying mother that bothers me, although, it was incredibly cruel. the bigger issue i have is that this wasn't about enforcing the law. it was about this cop exerting his power over another person.

I'va had a few run-ins with the police in the past, and honestly its not so much about enforcing the law (as i was breaking no laws when these things happened) it's about the power trip cops get over enforcing their will on other people. and they absolutely cannot stand it when you stand up for yourself and challenge their authority. (i could do this in my case because i was breaking no laws and doing nothing illegal)

i think in this particular case its best illustrated by the fact that this cop drew his gun over the running of a red light and nothing more.

its probably a good thing he's not on the dallas police force anymore. however, that doesn't change the behavior of the other cops who do this sort of thing all the time but never get called on it because there was no camera and no nfl player involved.

Re: Dallas Police Officer Apologizes To The Moats Family

Stacy — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:46:30 -0000

Because the media might not have ever jumped on it if he wasn't an NFL player. Almost all of these stops are on video now. Now not everyone is kept from seeing their dying mother, but this was picked up by every paper in the country for a reason. And that's because Moats is an NFL player.

Re: Dallas Police Officer Apologizes To The Moats Family

tx10zing — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:42:58 -0000

I don't get why anyone thinks football has anything to do with it. It's about the video, and that's all. Without the video, the cop admins ignore the complaint, and media types, including TNC, never get on board the outrage train. But with the video, it doesn't matter what the guy does for a living.

And I believe this cop 'resigned' the same way losing NFL coaches 'resign' -- at the tip of some boss's boot.

Re: Dallas Police Officer Apologizes To The Moats Family

Joel — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:29:35 -0000

Sometimes things just work out.

Re: Dallas Police Officer Apologizes To The Moats Family

Tony Comstock — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:17:31 -0000

I'm a total sucker for this kind of thing. When Daughter Moats said the thing about "maybe he's shy, but he's a human being too" I just lost it.

Re: Dallas Police Officer Apologizes To The Moats Family

Stacy — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:49:03 -0000

Those Moats are a classy bunch.

I tend to be pretty cynical, but I think we should probably take the resignation at face value. Maybe this officer realized, upon watching himself on the video, that he's really not made for this type of work. Or maybe he realize he was, but for all the wrong reasons.

If Moats weren't in the NFL, I'm pretty confident that none of this would have happened.