An Apology for Profiling Ryan Moats (and any other Black) is never enough
Maybe Dallas Police Chief David Kunkle forgot this:
Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, Article 2.131,
"A peace officer may not engage in racial profiling. Law enforcement-initiated action based on an individual's race, ethnicity, or national origin rather than on the individual's behavior or on information identifying the individual as having engaged in criminal activity."
After the ordeal straight out of Hell that Houston Texans running back Ryan Moats went through the chief may have had a memory lapse. Moats who is African-American gets word that his wife's mother is near death at Baylor Regional Medical Center in Plano, Texas (a Dallas suburb). He and his wife rush to the hospital to be at her side in her final hours. But Dallas police officer Robert Powell (white) has other ideas. He corrals Moats, his wife and another female passenger in the medical center parking lot and in what can only be described as a surreal scene, pulls his gun on them, waves it around at Moats, his wife, and orders them to stand down. He then turns two tone deaf ears to Moats's frantic efforts to explain that his mother-in-law is inside dying. Instead he mouths off at him. Moats won't say it he's got too much class for that, but no matter how profusely the Dallas chief apologizes, which to his credit he did, Moats and his wife were racially profiled.
The bone head stop of Moat's did more than give Dallas police a black eye and cause city official to scramble for damage control. It also cast suspicion on just how serious police agencies are in wiping out racial profiling. They all swear to the heavens that their officers don't profile. They have to; they've taken to much heat for it. In fact, the Texas statute that forbids racial profiling mandates that all Texas police departments file annual stats on motorist stops--by race. Dallas patted itself on the back in a city report in 2008 for seriously addressing all areas of concern about racial profiling and evaluating department procedures to insure that it doesn't happen. But the Moats stop proves that what the department puts on paper and what happens in the streets means it still has a long way to go to achieve its stated goal of providing "public service that is effective and fair."
Powell in his weak kneed half hearted defense, wailed that he thought he was following procedure, and just doing his job. In a twisted way he's probably right, and that's even more reason to doubt that Dallas and indeed other departments are really doing all they say they are to root out racial profiling.
Even by the jaded and dumb action of far too many cops who still think good law enforcement is pulling every twenty something young black male that they eyeball on the streets over, Moats's ordeal was extreme.
Moats should slap the Dallas and its police department with Mt. Everest dollar size lawsuit. That won't bring back his mother-in-law or erase the pain of knowing that the moments he spent being hectored by Powell were moments that he should have been at his mother-in-law's bedside. But Dallas still must pay, and pay dearly for that. An apology for what he went through is simply not enough.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His weekly radio show, "The Hutchinson Report" can be heard weekly in Los Angeles on KTYM Radio 1460 AM and nationally on blogtalkradio.com
You have to be kidding. Yeah, the officer in question is white and named Powell, but you've made an incredible leap by accusing him of racial profiling. Maybe he was, maybe, but there's hardly sufficient evidence to conclude that with any certainty.
Look, Moats committed a traffic violation. We now know he had a perfectly legitimate reason for doing so, but Officer Powell could not have immediately known Moats was racing to the hospital to see his dying mother-in-law. Powell subsequently ignored Moats' pleas, but was Powell being unreasonable and maybe racist, or was this merely a situation involving an inexperienced officer - Powell is only 25 - and a motorist who ran a red light, refused to immediately pull over, and then, maybe from Powell's perspective, concocted some story to get out of a ticket (hardly uncommon)?
Only a week or so ago, a motorist shot and killed four Oakland policemen following a routine traffic stop. You have to believe policemen everywhere are a little on edge, especially someone like Powell, who has barely been on the force.
This was an unfortunate and regrettable event, but probably the result of a perfect storm and not some inevitable consequence of racial profiling.
When I lived in the Pacoima/Lanark Park area 'ghettos', I, as a 'whitish-pink' Minority (conservative, hard-working, clean, dressed decently, etc, etc), was constantly profiled, disrespected, trashed by the majority, and occasionally pulled over and questioned by both Hispanic and African-American police officers for no good reason. The complete enjoyment on their faces, one could interpret as self-indulgent, arrogant love of perceived power. I could have made a huge stink, got on my band-wagon (which I am known to do) and called every media outlet, filed a lawsuit against the LAPD, etc, yet chose not to. Why? 'cause Life is not fair, humans (even cops) can be jerks, immature, down-right obnoxious, yes, even racist. There are also many cops in this world who are honest, decent, caring; yes, even the 'white' ones. Life in California (and the rest of the world, esp.) is not fair for a huge number of people, yet we all have to grow up sometime, pick our battles and move on. In the case above that Earl outlines, I agree that Moats and his family should be outraged, especially considering the circumstances. The Police Dept. should learn from this and train their young/new officers how to exercise sound judgement. I also agree with John. It is very difficult to impart experience and wise decisions/judgement to young humans. They have to learn the hard way. (Unfortunately, a cop sometimes has only a fraction of a second to react to a situation-civilians do not always know the facts). None of us can read another's mind so we shouldn't jump to conclusions about their actions unless we have hard evidence. If we do this and shut the doors on someone's statements, opinions, etc., then we all lose.