State Trooper vs. Paramedic [Serve & Protect ???]

Cell Phone Vid

Full Dash Cam Vid

Fox 23 in Tulsa had had a Freedom of Information request in for the dash cam for more than two weeks. Late last night, the OHP finally stopped stonewalling and released the trooper's video dash cam.

It's not pretty. And, a warning--there is totally unacceptable language for a family setting.

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.

After the ambulance gets past the parked vehicle, Franks slows and safely pulls over for the trooper. As Martin zooms by--at a speed that I would call excessive for just a stolen car report--he uses the radio to reprimand the ambulance for not pulling over.

Later in the tape, it's shown that the sheriff's department is already on scene at the stolen car incident. Martin is released from any need to be at the scene.

Then he whips around, guns his car, and goes out hunting the ambulance. When he catches up with the ambulance, what happens next is a textbook case for bad judgment and abuse of power.

Before the encounter is over, Martin has assaulted the paramedic, frightened the patient, and created a neighborhood scene that is so unprofessional that it's just about unbelievable. Enraged, he calls for backup, repeatedly threatens the unit's operators, curses, chokes and slams White up against the ambulance several times--an action the patient later said rocked the unit, frightening her.

He also keeps screaming "you insulted me." The trooper later says that Franks made an obscene hand gesture as Martin passed the ambulance, a charge Franks denies.

Martin plans a press conference on Monday, according to Fox 23. Martin, who had his wife in the patrol car with him for an as-yet unknown reason, later declared that he'd recently come back from service in Iraq, a fact the OHP has not yet addressed.

Although Martin's on leave, it took awhile for the OHP to admit that, and then officials noted that the trooper had requested the paid administrative lead. It's a tangled mess that never had to happen.

As a graduate of the Bartlesville Police Department's Citizen Police Academy, I'm qualified to ride patrol with local officers, and have done so. I have seen three officers required to safely subdue and arrest a crazed, drunken multiple offender, with a track record for assaulting officers, who was in the middle of the road attacking cars while raging and cursing.

They accomplished the task without rage, profanity or violence. It's just one example of how tense and dangerous situations are handled every day, on all three shifts.

The stress on officers is immense--but I have never seen one of our officers responding to actual threats and verbal abuse like Martin responded to another emergency responder on duty. Not only that, but as a non-law enforcement professional, I've also been cursed, threatened, and insulted.

In fact, I've had drunken offenders not only call me names while enroute to jail, but also describe, clearly, the sexual services they expect from me and intend to get. I didn't lose my cool, nor did my patrol partner.

If a civilian can handle extreme duress and verbal abuse, why can't a supposedly well-trained professional officer handle an ambulance's driver choosing not to pull his unit into another vehicle while transporting a patient? What made it necessary for this trooper to hunt down the ambulance and escalate the situation into a public brawl rather than just going on?

The Oklahoma Highway Patrol has a serious problem--both with this trooper and within the agency. Their actions in stonewalling media and the public has set a bad example. Had a family member not been on hand with a cellphone camera during the episode, Martin's actions in choking White would have been undocumented as they were out of range of the camera. Not only that, but the backup trooper turned off his dash cam, accrding to earlier reports.