This is not pretty and definitely NSFW (or kids for that matter). It’s always the bad seeds that get the spotlight in these cases, which is too bad for the rest of the force, but behavior like this part and parcel of management and hiring practices. People like this should not get to carry a badge or gun under any circumstances. Period.
Let me walk it down for you. An ambulance, with Maurice White acting as supervisor and paramedic, is taking an elderly woman, who had collapsed, to the hospital for treatment. Her worried family follows.
Trooper Daniel Martin, who was responding to a stolen car report, came up behind the ambulance on a two-lane country road. In Oklahoma, those shoulders are notoriously tricky for even a car to pull off onto. But there's another factor involved. As the dash cam clearly shows, a car is on the right-hand shoulder, partially obstructing the highway. Just as the highway patrol pulls up behind the ambulance, the medical unit must swing out to avoid colliding with the parked car.
Let me repeat that, because it's important: if the ambulance's driver, Paul Franks, had immediately pulled over when the racing trooper came up behind him, he would have created an accident. It is impossible to safely pull over while slamming into another vehicle.
Original article here [3] (with apologies to Patricia)
[4]
Links:
[1] http://thehindsightfactor.com/category/blog-posts/civil-rights
[2] http://thehindsightfactor.com/category/blog-posts/police-abusing-power
[3] http://www.examiner.com/x-6121-Oklahoma-Crime-Examiner~y2009m6d13-Oklahoma-Highway-Patrol-finally-releases-video-of-trooper-attack-on-paramedic
[4] http://www.addtoany.com/share_save?linkurl=http%3A%2F%2Fthehindsightfactor.com%2Foklahoma-highway-patrol-finally-releases-video-trooper-attack-paramedic&linkname=Oklahoma%20Highway%20Patrol%20Finally%20Releases%20Video%20of%20Trooper%20Attack%20on%20Paramedic
Comments
Use of my copyrighted material
Hi Jay,
On the OK Highway Patrol post, above, you used my headline and my copyrighted material without permission, attribution, or even a courtesy link.
I cover Oklahoma Crime for Clarity Media/Examiner dot com. The article excerpt you used without attribution is part of an ongoing series.
Please cite me as the source and provide a link to my original work, or remove it. If you like my work, that would be nice, but I'd appreciate being cited for my work.
Thank you,
Patricia Phillips
Apologies for the oversite
Hi Patricia,
Apologies to you for this - I'm normally quite good (in fact, since I use WLW for my blogging, the source/attribution links are supposed to be automatically inserted). I've just reopened the blog after finishing my thesis, so I suppose the kinks have yet to be worked out. Thanks for the reporting and I have updated the post accordingly.
best,
Jay