Name: Ashley Silva

Date: 13 April 2009

Word Range: 386-434

# of words: 393

in range?Yes

Police Power

Text 4_1

I heard a story the other day on the radio about a Texan football player who was on his way to the hospital to se his dying mother in law when he was pulled over by a police officer and not permitted to enter the hospital. I hear d this on the radio so they played an audio clip of the officer talking to the football player. The football player had his caution lights on the whole time and rolled through a red light right to the front door of the hospital where the cop pulled them over. The audio I heard kept mentioning the cop saying that he could take him to jail just for running the red light. That got me think about weather the police should have that much power. Should police have the power to make someone miss a very important and life changing situation?

I think that given the right situations, yes the police should have that power. However, when they abuse their power and try and make themselves high and mighty and use their power to hinder someone who had a real emergency should defiantly rethink the power that they are given. When a police officer abuses the power that they are given it makes all law enforcement look bad. They are the ones who are supposed to be protecting and helping people out. When they cannot decipher between the right and the wrong times to use the power they have. Some need to use better discernment when dealing with situations

I think in the given situation with the football player I think the officer should have shone some sort of compassion and not been on an ego trip and let the man at least see his dying mother in law. I think the police have to have a better sense of when to take or not take advantage of the power they are given. I know that the officer that this happened to did resign from the force and he very much should have. Police officers with no compassion are worthless to society. Sometimes they have to do what they have to do order to keep others safe, but they must exercise some discernment when dealing with certain situations.