Officer faces rebuke in handling of Texan Officer faces rebuke in handling of RB Moats

Texans player was trying to make it to dying mother-in-law

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A Dallas policeman who refused to allow Texans running back Ryan Moats and his family to reach the bedside of a dying family member was placed on administrative leave Thursday and chastised by the city’s police chief for lack of compassion, discretion and common sense.

Police Chief David Kunkle said administrative charges will be levied against officer Robert Powell, who detained Moats and family members at Baylor Regional Medical Center in Plano after they raced through suburban Dallas in the early morning hours of March 18, twice rolling through red lights, in an effort to share the final moments of Moats’ mother-in-law.

Jonetta Collinsworth, 45, the mother of Moats’ wife, Tamishia, died as Moats and his father-in-law stood by the players’ car while Powell threatened to jail the men and said, “I can screw you over.”

“I am embarrassed and disappointed by (Powell’s) behavior,” Kunkle said. “His behavior, in my opinion, did not exhibit the common sense, the discretion, the compassion that we expect our officers to exhibit.

“… At the point the officer was told that they were responding to a dying family member, that should have been his concern.”

Moats, in an interview with a Dallas radio station, said the officer’s intransigence robbed him and his father-in-law of irreplaceable moments in a time of grief that morphed, after the officer pulled a weapon on Moats and his wife, into moments of confusion and terror.

Dallas police officer Robert Powell is seen in this undated photo provided by the Dallas Police Department via The Dallas Morning News. Powell was placed on paid leave pending an internal investigation. Dallas police officer Robert Powell is seen in this undated photo provided by the Dallas Police Department via The Dallas Morning News. Powell was placed on paid leave pending an internal investigation. Photo: Dallas PD Photo: Dallas PD Image 1 of / 5 Caption Close Officer faces rebuke in handling of Texan 1 / 5 Back to Gallery

“All I know is what he did was wrong,” Moats told Dallas station KRLD-FM. “He stole a moment from me that I can never get back.”

Moats said in the radio interview that he and his family left his home in Frisco for the hospital after being told that Jonetta Collinsworth, who suffered from breast cancer, was near death.

He said he drove with the emergency lights flashing on his SUV and twice drove through red lights as he approached the hospital, but only after receiving hand signals from motorists that it was safe for him to proceed.

Video shot by the police car’s dashboard camera indicated that Powell pursued Moats for about a minute, with lights flashing and most of that time with his siren blaring, before the player stopped his SUV outside the hospital’s emergency entrance.

Moats and his wife told The Dallas Morning News that Powell pointed his gun at each of them as they got out of the vehicle. A Dallas police supervisor told the newspaper it is not uncommon for officers to display a weapon during a traffic stop if they feel threatened.

Moats said Tamishia Moats and her aunt ran into the hospital as the officer turned his attention to him and to his father-in-law, who also was in the SUV. The police video recording includes several terse exchanges between Powell and Moats, even after the player repeatedly told the officer that he was rushing to the side of a dying relative.

“You really want to go through this right now?” Moats said. “My mother-in-law is dying, right now.” A nurse and hospital security guards also confirmed the player’s story to Powell.

“Shut your mouth,” Powell said at one point. “You can cooperate and settle down, or I can just take you to jail for running a red light.”

Powell detailed the player and his father-in-law for about 13 minutes, according to the police tape, and as Moats signed a ticket for running a red light, said, “Attitude’s everything. All you had to is stop, tell me what is going on. More than likely, I would have let you go.”

Kunkle said Moats exhibited “extraordinary restraint in dealing with the behavior of our officer. At no time did Mr. Moats identify himself as an NFL football player or expect any kind of special consideration.”

A Dallas police spokesman said the traffic citation has been dismissed.

During the KRLD-FM interview Thursday, Moats said, “I couldn’t say anything that would make him (Powell) calm down. He said a lot of stuff to me. … He really, you could say, stuck it to me, I guess.”

Kunkle said Powell, who was placed on paid leave and assigned to dispatch duty, told a supervisor he was doing his job and “believed he had not acted inappropriately.”

Asked by talk show hosts Kevin Scott and Greg Hill if he thought the case had racial overtones, Moats, 26, replied, “I can’t be the judge of that.” Moats is African-American, and Powell, 25, is white.

“I would hope that people would think of it as a human being and not a race thing,” he said. “This should anger any race, because that could be your mother. That could be somebody else’s mother dying in a hospital. That is something that you cannot get back. It’s gone, you know. That time is gone.”

Moats, who played for Bishop Lynch High School in Dallas and for Louisiana Tech, has been in the NFL for three seasons and has been with the Texans since 2008.

DeMaurice Smith, executive director of the NFL Players Association, said the NFLPA is ready to offer assistance to both the Moatses and Dallas police.

“I expressed my condolences to Ryan’s family and I am very sorry for their loss," Smith said. "I have also spoken with the Dallas Police Dept about their continued investigation of this matter and appreciated their swift reaction with respect to this incident.

"We stand by to offer any assistance asked of us and Mr. Moats’ family."

“Our thoughts and prayers go out to Ryan and his family,” Texans spokesman Tony Wyllie said. “They’re dealing with a terrible loss in the family as well as an emotional situation.”

Material from The Associated Press and The Dallas Morning News contributed to this report.

david.barron@chron.com