Perhaps you heard about the case of the Dallas police officer who detained a man and his family in a hospital parking lot after they ran a red light while they were rushing to attend to a dying family member. The women in the family were able to get to their loved one's bedside in time; the men who stayed behind to deal with the officer did not -- even though hospital security went down to the parking lot to tell the officer what was happening.

The officer not only detained the man, who happens to be NFL player Ryan Moats (but Moats never mentioned that fact), he was nasty and obnoxious while doing it.

But don't take my word for it. We have the tape:

We find out what his superiors have to say about all that, and I'm interested to hear what you had to say about that.

And why don't we put our cards on the table. This is exactly the kind of scenario that pushes many minority people's buttons all the time. You hear about police misconduct when it involves killing someone or beating someone, but how about being needlessly cruel and insensitive?

And do you think race is a factor?

This is one of the ongoing irritants for African Americans and Latinos in this country. Here's a stat according to a 2007 Pew Poll (pdf) on racial attitudes (conducted in association with NPR):

Young people, regardless of race, have the least amount of confidence in local police. Only 16% of all blacks under the age of 30 consistently express trust in police on all three measures, compared with 26% of those blacks 65 years and older. While whites have significantly more confidence than blacks in local police, young whites are skeptical.

Anyway, it occurred to us only belatedly that both our lead story, about the flap over the Dallas police officer's behavior, and the second story, about prison rape, both had a Texas connection. We would hate for anyone to think we are picking on Texas. We think these are both national stories whose details happened to be located there.

... Or are they?

One of the points of discussion I think some might have is, is there any larger meaning? Is this the classic instance of "a few bad apples" versus a bad system?

categories: More on Crime & Punishment

4:12 - March 30, 2009

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