What's up with police in Texas?

What is up with police in Texas? First I saw this in the LA Times (“Driving through Tenaha, Texas, doesn’t pay for some,” Howard Witt, 11 March 2009): Reporting from Tenaha, Texas -- You can drive into this dusty fleck of a town near the Texas-Louisiana state line if you're African American, but you might not be able to drive out of it -- at least not with your car, your cash, your jewelry or other valuables. That's because the police here allegedly have found a way to strip motorists, many of them black, of their property without ever charging them with a crime. Instead they offer out-of-towners a grim choice: Sign over your belongings to the town, or face felony charges of money laundering or other serious crimes . . . Officials in Tenaha, along a heavily traveled state highway connecting Houston with several popular gambling destinations in Louisiana, say they are engaged in a battle against drug trafficking, and they call the search-and-seizure practice a legitimate use of the state's asset-forfeiture law . . . "If used properly, it's a good law-enforcement tool to see that crime doesn't pay," said Democratic state Sen. John Whitmire, chairman of the Senate's Criminal Justice Committee. "But in this instance, where people are being pulled over and their property is taken with no charges filed and no convictions, I think that's theft." . . . In some cases, police used the fact that motorists were carrying large amounts of cash as evidence that they must have been involved in laundering drug money, even though [Attorney David] Guillory said each of the drivers he contacted could account for where the money had come from and why they were carrying it -- such as for a gambling trip to Shreveport, La., or to purchase a used car from a private seller . . . The process apparently is so routine in Tenaha that Guillory discovered pre-signed and pre-notarized police affidavits with blank spaces left for an officer to fill in a description of the property being seized.

Then the news about NFL player Ryan Moats broke (”Dallas officer delayed NFL player as relative died,” Schuyler Dixon, 26 March 2009): DALLAS (AP)—A police officer was placed on administrative leave Thursday over a traffic stop involving an NFL player whom he kept in a hospital parking lot and threatened to arrest while his mother-in-law died inside the building. Officer Robert Powell also drew his gun during the March 18 incident involving Houston Texans running back Ryan Moats in the Dallas suburb of Plano, police said . . . Powell, 25, a three-year member of the force, stopped Moats’ SUV outside Baylor Regional Medical Center at Plano after Moats rolled through a red light . . . By the time the 26-year-old NFL player received a ticket and a lecture from Powell, about 13 minutes had passed. When he and Collinsworth’s father entered the hospital, they learned Collinsworth was dead.

And then we learned more about Officer Robert Powell and his hard ass approach via the Dallas Morning News (“Zach Thomas: Same Dallas officer mistreated my wife,” Todd Archer, 29 March 2009) report: Maritza Thomas, the wife of NFL linebacker Zach Thomas, saw a familiar face as she watched the video of Officer Robert Powell detaining Houston Texans running back Ryan Moats as he and his family rushed to a hospital to see a dying loved one. That face was Powell's. On July 27, 2008, while her husband was at training camp with the Cowboys in Oxnard, Calif., Maritza Thomas was pulled over by Powell for an illegal U-turn near NorthPark Center. Maritza Thomas was issued five tickets by Powell, four of which were later dismissed. Thomas was handcuffed, placed in the back of a police cruiser, spent about three hours in the Dallas County Jail and was threatened with the possibility of spending the night behind bars . . . In total, Maritza Thomas, who is Hispanic, was detained roughly five hours . . . Judge C. Victor Lander, the city of Dallas' chief municipal judge, said under Texas law a person can be arrested for any Class C misdemeanor citation except speeding and having an open container. When an officer gives someone a traffic citation, it is in lieu of arrest, Lander said. The officer does have the option of making an arrest, he said. "It really is giving the individual a break by issuing them a ticket. But it's a break most people get," Lander said.

My comments: Here in Los Angeles, I’ve had encounters with police as well – though hardly to the degree as those listed above. (I’m not going to say my encounters were non-issues, however.) I often wonder if police officers have a missing gene. As mentioned in one of the articles, the gene missing is for: common sense, discretion and compassion. Of course, in regards to Tenaha, that's just criminal.

And breaking news: Official Powell resigned.