The Officer in Ryan Moats Debacle Wrote His Own Ticket Too

By: Deborah Mathis

We will never know what possessed Dallas Police Officer Robert Powell to behave so preposterously, shamefully and callously a couple of weeks ago, when he wouldn’t let a family get to their dying loved one because of an insignificant traffic violation.

It would hardly be of any help if Powell, himself, tried to explain his actions on the night that Jonetta Collinsworth lay on her death bed at Baylor Regional Medical Center, with her daughter and son-in-law racing to get there before she drew her last breath.

A rolling stop through a red light set him off, prompted him to turn on the flashing lights, and was all the reason he needed to hold Ryan Moats in the hospital parking lot even as Moats pleadingly explained that his mother-in-law was dying upstairs and he needed to pay his final respects.

Other than the Taliban, what kind of human creature gets that explanation and refuses to let a person go, but cold-heartedly threatens the frantic family members and insists on writing a ticket?

Powell’s tardy apology rings convenient for a man at the center of an outrage with his job on the line. And it fails to enlighten.

“After stopping Mr. Moats’ vehicle, I showed poor judgment and insensitivity to Mr. Moats and his family by my words and actions,” read the statement Powell released 10 days after the incident and, notably, after the scandal had come to light via the tale of the police cruiser dashboard tape.

That told us nothing we didn’t already know and was, in its understatement, an altogether new offense. “Poor judgment?” “Insensitivity?” Seems that Officer Powell, the storied hard-ass, has no trouble cutting him self some slack.

No, something deeper was at work there. But what? Evidently, something was missed on the psychological test that Powell presumably had to take as part of his candidacy as a police officer. Something didn’t get asked, or answered, or noticed in his training.

Was it racism? Powell is white, the Moatses are black, and the sorry episode did happen in a conservative, predominantly white Southern city. And Powell did something similar last summer to a Latino woman whom Powell arrested and jailed over an illegal U-turn.

The Officer in Ryan Moats Debacle Wrote His Own Ticket Too....