Ryan Moats and his wife, Tamisha, issued a statement through the team today regarding a March 18 incident with the Dallas police.
Ryan Moats and his wife, Tamisha, say they are ready to move on from an incident involving their family and the Dallas Police Department on March 18.
The Texans' running back was pulled over by Dallas police officer Robert Powell for rolling through a red light near Baylor Regional Medical Center in Plano, a suburb of Dallas. He, Tamisha and other family members were en route to the hospital bedside of Tamisha's mother, Jonetta Collinsworth, who was dying of breast cancer.
While Tamisha and another relative rushed inside, Powell detained her husband in the hospital parking lot for approximately 13 minutes despite his pleas to go inside. Collinsworth died before Powell finished writing a ticket and allowed Moats to enter the hospital.
"The Moats family would like to thank the public for all their support and for expressing their condolences during this difficult time," Ryan and Tamisha said in a statement on Monday. "We will now be focusing on our family and healing during this time of grievance."
The Moatses appeared on ABC-TV's "Good Morning America" on Monday to discuss the incident and to pay homage to Collinsworth, who passed away at age 45. They told ABC's Robin Roberts that they have accepted the apology issued by Powell through his attorneys on March 27, although Tamisha added that she would like to hear a personal apology from the third-year police officer.
Powell has been placed on paid leave pending an internal investigation by the Dallas Police Department.
Texans kicker Kris Brown, along with guard Chester Pitts and Mark Bruener, was asked by NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith to serve as a liason between the players' union and the Moats family.
{QUOTE}"(Smith) called and just wanted a couple of players that the family could use as a resource," Brown said. "If there's any issue that they're having, any problem that they feel like needs to be addressed from the union side, he felt like Chester and Mark and I were the guys that Ryan and his family could come to.
"They're dealing with a lot right now, and the last thing that they need to be concerned about is something that we as a union can help them with. I think it was just a gesture to just say, 'Hey, you guys go through the grieving process right now and just focus on that and don't worry about anything else.'"
Like many who have spoken publicly about the incident, including Dallas Police Department officials, Brown is impressed with the way that Moats has handled the situation.
"Under the circumstances, I don't know that anybody could've handled it better," Brown said. "Ryan's about as mild-mannered a guy as you're going to get. He's just a real quiet guy, doesn't say a whole lot, tends to his business. So from that standpoint of how he's handled the situation, it's no surprise whatsoever, because that's just who he is. That's his personality.
"I don't think any of us could fathom going through something like that, what it would be like. And he's just handled it extraordinarily."
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