Last Wednesday Aline Wright had a stroke, but was luckily enough to feel it coming along early. Her husband of four days Jesse, was quick to put her in the car and rush her to the hospital. On their way there Jesse ran two red lights, he was not reckless though, he in fact stopped at the light and made sure there was no oncoming traffic before moving on, treating the lights as stop signs. On the second light a cop spotted them and gave chase, being only a block away from the hospital, Jesse decided not to stop thinking the cop would realize why he had done what he did. The cop caught up with them at the entrance of the emergency room and actually stopped them from entering, Aline actually being carried in Jesse's arms. The cop did eventually let them through, but followed them in intent on arresting Jesse. The Hospital, though, turned him away as Arline could not speak, and Jesse was needed to answer questions.
The following days progressed oddly, when on Thursday Jesse was told there was a warrant out for his arrest, upon turning himself in though he was told no such warrant existed. Returning to his wife, he was awoken on Friday morning to find that he was being arrested. The couple already have a lawyer ready to fight this, and intend to lodge a complaint against the police department. The only comment the department would make on the issue was that the officer was "just doing his job." And you know what? He was.
Yeah he was being a dick about it, and went about this whole issue the completely wrong way, but this officer saw a man run a red light, and when giving pursuit, the driver did not pull over. Here's a simple truth that many do not know, it's not a cop's job to protect you, a cop's job is to enforce the law. The question of this story to me is when does the law become supplemental. I'm sure we've all heard a story of a frantic man driving a pregnant woman to the hospital as she enters labor, the man is pulled over for speeding, and the cop then gives the two an escort to the hospital. But Jesse didn't stop, he didn't have a police car ahead of him clearing traffic for him, and despite being only a few blocks to the Hospital, a cop could interpret this as endangering others, and the man did not stop when caught.
Even with this I'm going to be siding with the Wrights here. Once the cop realized what was going on, he should have let them go, possibly with a warning. The man stopped these two right outside the entrance to the ER while Jesse was literally carrying Aline because she was unable to walk. This man followed these two into the hospital with intents to arrest Jesse for the crime of carefully running a red light with no traffic, and a wife experiencing a stroke. The law or not, it takes someone very cold to not understand that going after a guy for that is wrong. And that's the thing with this story to me, there's a legitimate complaint for both sides, but the Cop tops it for not realizing that while Jesse did break the law, he didn't do anything wrong.
“Laws control the lesser man... Right conduct controls the greater one.” Mark Twain
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