DALLAS — Houston Texans running back Ryan Moats said Monday he accepts the apology offered by a Dallas police officer who stopped him with a drawn gun in a hospital parking lot as his mother- in-law was dying.
Moats said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” that he hopes Officer Robert Powell was sincere in his apology.
Powell stopped Moats’ SUV outside Baylor Regional Medical Center in suburban Plano on March 18 after the vehicle rolled through a red light. Moats’ wife, Tamishia, and other relatives also were in the car.
The officer pulled out his gun and threatened Moats with jail as the player pleaded to be allowed to go inside the hospital. Moats’ mother-in-law, 45-year-old Jonetta Collinsworth, died while Powell wrote Moats a ticket and lectured him.
“I loved Jo . . . my mother-in-law. We call her Jo. She was just like my mom basically,” Ryan Moats said.
Powell, who has been placed on paid leave pending an investigation, issued a statement Friday through his attorneys.
“I wish to publicly and sincerely apologize to the Moats family, my colleagues in the Dallas Police Department, and to all those who have been rightfully angered by my actions on March 18, 2009. After stopping Mr. Moats’ vehicle, I showed poor judgment and insensitivity to Mr. Moats and his family by my words and actions,” Powell’s statement said.
Tamishia Moats said she’d like to hear the apology personally, but that she, too, would definitely accept it.
