Dallas police Officer Robert Powell resigned Wednesday, a week after he garnered national notoriety for detaining an NFL player outside a hospital where his mother-in-law lay dying.
"With a heavy heart and great sadness, I resigned from the Dallas Police Department this morning," he said in a statement issued by his attorneys. "I made this decision in the hope that my resignation will allow the Dallas Police Department, my fellow officers, and the citizens of Dallas to better reflect on this experience, learn from the mistakes made, and move forward."
The resignation won't end the internal-affairs investigation into Powell's actions, police officials said.
The officer was accused of misconduct after he stopped Houston Texans running back Ryan Moats for rolling through a red light while rushing his wife and her family to the hospital the night of March 17. Squad-car video shows Powell berating Moats during a 13-minute episode while his mother-in-law died. He publicly apologized last week for adding to the family's grief.
The resignation comes amid reviews by the district attorney's offices of Dallas and Denton counties into cases generated by Powell.
"We saw the videotape on television, and it was an outrage," said Terri Moore, top assistant to Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins. "So we wanted, obviously, to see if there were any pending cases and to see his conduct."
Powell's resignation doesn't change the need to look into the cases, Moore said. She is also examining whether the cases can be tried without his testimony. In some cases, he wasn't the only officer who responded to an incident.
Review in Denton
In Denton County, where there is a sliver of territory inside Dallas city limits, prosecutors are also reviewing Powell's cases.
"It's a small number of cases, but nonetheless it needs to be looked at, and that's what we're going to do," Denton County District Attorney Paul Johnson said.
In one Denton County case, dismissed by prosecutors last year, Powell can be heard on his dashboard video camera acting hostile toward a man he pulled over for speeding.
"What's your hurry?" Powell asked.
"No hurry, sir."
"All right, try again," Powell said. "What's your hurry? ... Don't lie."
Powell can then be heard telling another officer that he didn't smell any alcohol on the man but was going to check him for intoxication anyway.
The man refused to blow into a Breathalyzer but did perform field sobriety tests of speech and balance. Powell arrested the man on a DWI charge.
Later, at a state hearing to determine whether the man would lose his driver's license for refusing the breath test, Powell contradicted what he said on video.
"And you asked him to step out of the car for what reason?" the man's attorney, Kimberly Griffin Tucker, asked Powell, according to a transcript.
"Because I smelled alcohol on his breath," Powell replied.
When Tucker then played the video, Powell gave another explanation.
"Well, I didn't say exactly when I smelled the alcohol," he said. "Sometimes when I get people out, I can smell it more than in their vehicle because a lot of times people won't exactly look at me."
The judge, unconvinced that Powell had probable cause, declined to suspend the man's license in the December 2007 arrest. And Denton County prosecutors dismissed the DWI charge. They didn't feel they had enough evidence to make a case, prosecutor Jamie Beck said.
Of the defendant's actions on tape, Beck said: "He's being very polite, very cooperative, and his mental faculties appear to be intact."
"The officer is kind of a jerk," the prosecutor said, "so that's going to count against us when we're trying it in court."
Collin complaint
In Collin County, where Powell also patrolled a small sliver of territory, First Assistant District Attorney Greg Davis said Wednesday that no decision had been made about examining Powell's cases.
But an attorney who represented someone Powell arrested in Collin County voiced complaints this week.
"Who knows how many people he arrested were not guilty?" attorney Pete Schulte asked.
Powell arrested his client on a DWI charge on New Year's Eve 2007 after pulling him over for speeding. Schulte said Powell began berating his client about being on probation for DWI during the stop.
According to the client, John Britt, Powell was "cocky" and "arrogant" during the traffic stop. He became angry when Britt told him he would not take sobriety tests without his lawyer present, Britt said.
During the trial this January, Schulte asked Powell how many people he had investigated for DWI. According to Schulte, Powell said he had investigated 40 people and arrested all of them. He said that he arrested people for DWI if they had alcohol on their breath even if they passed sobriety tests.
"He testified that he thought it was odor alone," Schulte said.
A jury found Britt not guilty, but he's serving jail time because his probation for the earlier DWI was revoked based on Powell's testimony.
"I think it's rookie-itis," Schulte said of Powell, who joined the force in 2006. "I think he did whatever he needed to do to get my client convicted. I don't know if he lied. But he exaggerated."
Powell's attorney, Bob Gorsky, said Wednesday that he couldn't respond to accusations about specific cases because he had not researched them.
"I would think it would be easy to find defendants and their lawyers who will complain about the officers who took them to jail," Gorsky said. "I think he's just an easy target right now."
Meanwhile, Gorsky had a complaint of his own Wednesday, directed at Ryan Moats and his wife. The attorney said he'd been trying to reach their representatives since Friday to arrange for a personal apology. He said he offered for Powell to make the apology any time or place with one stipulation: no cameras or recordings.
Gorsky said the Moatses' attorney wouldn't agree and demanded that the apology be made on camera.
The Moatses' attorney, Christina Sookdeo, said she was surprised at Gorsky's complaint. She said her clients had made no demands and that she had been in the process Wednesday of trying to work something out.
"But at this point in time, they'd like to bring closure to this and move on with the mourning process," she said.
stevethompson@dallasnews.com;
