EMT Wants Accountability From OHP

By Tara Vreeland, The News On 6

TULSA, OK -- EMT Maurice White says he is, in a way, glad that the scuffle with the Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper happened because it means problems will be addressed and dealt with.  He also tells The News On 6 he is looking for accountability from the OHP.

"This situation can never happen again," said Maurice White.

Maurice White doesn't want to see anyone else in the position he was in at the business end of a choke-hold from Oklahoma Highway Patrol Trooper Daniel Martin. 

Watch the video. 

But, White thinks it will happen again to someone else unless some questions are answered.

"Whatever we have to make sure that that never occurs again and that some definitive light is shed on the problems with the OHP, we will go forward and do it whatever that takes," said Maurice White.

White says even when flattened against his ambulance, he was worried about the patient in the back.  It was a woman suffering from possible heat exhaustion whom he and his partner were taking to a hospital.

"The word that comes to mind is absolute torture for a mother to be strapped to a gurney with an IV, an EKG and oxygen cannot move and she is hearing her family members scream outside that had to be torture.  She did not deserve that," said White.

Nor does he feel he or his partner, Paul Franks, deserved the treatment they received from Trooper Martin.

"Never in my lifetime have I seen that kind of focused rage before," said Maurice White.  "If a trooper behaves that way with a fellow professional and a professional who is transporting a patient with chest pain how does that trooper handle other situations?"

White also wants to see OHP's dashcam video.  It is the video the patrol has refused to release after first saying it showed the paramedics starting the scuffle.

06/11/2009 Related Story: Why Won't OHP Release Dashcam Video?

"The dashcam video will show his state of rage when he exited his vehicle to speak to my driver.  It will show his total disregard for the patient when he was informed we were transporting a patient and when it was asked if we could take this up at the hospital, it will show his total disregard.  And, it will show a trooper at that moment who was totally out of control," said White.

White told The News On 6 he holds the OHP in the highest regard and says they generally are the epitome of professionalism when it comes to police work.

White's lawyer, Richard O'Carroll, told The News On 6 that he will get the dashcam video, but it will take a lawsuit to do so which means there could be a civil lawsuit in the future.

Read the Paramedic's Report

Read the Trooper's Report   

Read a witness's statement