Texas Cop, "Police Brutality", Black kids.

[Landlord]

 

I guess we'll disagree on that. I don't think people in a position of authority should be expected to be treated in such a manner. Again, that doesn't take away the responsibility he bares, but to totally discount her fault in the situation is not right, imo.

 

I agree with you that she should not have been arrested as a result of a traffic stop. But that's ignoring most of what took place in this situation.

 

 

 

 

What rationale do you think the officer had to ask her to step out of the vehicle?

 

 

As far as I can tell, since he was calm immediately before, and then told her to immediately after she said she wasn't going to put out her cigarette, that he responded because he was mad that she didn't follow his request, which was only a request, and not a lawful order.

 

Him asking her to step out of the vehicle was the moment that the situation turned, and he had no reason to do so, imo.

[knapplc]

I guess we'll disagree on that. I don't think people in a position of authority should be expected to be treated in such a manner. Again, that doesn't take away the responsibility he bares, but to totally discount her fault in the situation is not right, imo. She could just as easily have avoided the escalation.

 

I agree with you that she should not have been arrested as a result of a traffic stop. But that's ignoring most of what took place in this situation.

 

 

Of course officers shouldn't be treated that way. She should have been more pleasant, that's true. But her unpleasantness, her WORDS, should not have led down that chain of events that ended in her arrest.

 

Let's look at the consequences of the lady's actions and the officer's actions:

 

The woman was a jerk to the officer, and disrespectful. The consequence to the officer - he's being unfairly treated, and his feelings/ego could understandably be hurt.

 

The officer was being a jerk to the woman, and disrespectful. The consequence to the woman - she's removed from her car, handcuffed and placed on the ground, threatened with a taser, arrested, and spends days in jail.

 

 

 

There is a massive disproportion in that situation. No matter how disrespectful that woman was, in no way does her behavior warrant what happened to her (ignoring the suicide - that's a whole different discussion that has little to do with this officer).

 

As citizens we should never be OK with a law officer escalating what amounts to a bad attitude to the level that someone's civil liberties are taken away. I can't fathom how anyone can be OK with her arrest for being rude.

[Mavric]

As citizens we should never be OK with a law officer escalating what amounts to a bad attitude to the level that someone's civil liberties are taken away. I can't fathom how anyone can be OK with her arrest for being rude.

Being rude is not what got her arrested.

[huskerenner]

Having had my share of run ins with the boys in blue,this is not at all surprising.Its not right,but not at all surprising.

[Mavric]

 

 

I guess we'll disagree on that. I don't think people in a position of authority should be expected to be treated in such a manner. Again, that doesn't take away the responsibility he bares, but to totally discount her fault in the situation is not right, imo.

 

I agree with you that she should not have been arrested as a result of a traffic stop. But that's ignoring most of what took place in this situation.

 

 

 

 

What rationale do you think the officer had to ask her to step out of the vehicle?

 

 

As far as I can tell, since he was calm immediately before, and then told her to immediately after she said she wasn't going to put out her cigarette, that he responded because he was mad that she didn't follow his request, which was only a request, and not a lawful order.

 

Him asking her to step out of the vehicle was the moment that the situation turned, and he had no reason to do so, imo.

 

 

I've said that over and over - I don't think he handled the situation correctly either. But that doesn't mean she doesn't share any responsibility for how it turned out.

 

She was given at least two chances to let the situation de-escelate and didn't. In fact, she threw gas on the fire. There was some interaction between the two the first time he was at her car, on the passenger side but I couldn't really make it out. Then, after a couple minutes back in his own car when everyone could have settled down there was another interaction when he asked "are you done?" Again, not how he should have handled it but she had another chance to let it drop but didn't. So I don't think your impression of how quickly it escalated is accurate.

[knapplc]

 

As citizens we should never be OK with a law officer escalating what amounts to a bad attitude to the level that someone's civil liberties are taken away. I can't fathom how anyone can be OK with her arrest for being rude.

Being rude is not what got her arrested.

 

 

Yes it is. If she's not rude to that officer, she gets a ticket and goes on with her life. Her rudeness was the base on which that entire situation was built.

[Mavric]

 

 

As citizens we should never be OK with a law officer escalating what amounts to a bad attitude to the level that someone's civil liberties are taken away. I can't fathom how anyone can be OK with her arrest for being rude.

Being rude is not what got her arrested.

 

 

Yes it is. If she's not rude to that officer, she gets a ticket and goes on with her life. Her rudeness was the base on which that entire situation was built.

 

 

The bolded is true. But that's not why she was arrested.

[knapplc]

We're ignoring the MASSIVE disproportion in consequences to the two parties, and that's where the conversation breaks down.

[NUance]

http://www.theonion.com/blogpost/do-you-know-why-im-pulling-you-over-being-wildly-a-50916

 

I got a good laugh reading this this morning. It's actually not *that* far off the mark. +1

[ZRod]

 

 

 

As citizens we should never be OK with a law officer escalating what amounts to a bad attitude to the level that someone's civil liberties are taken away. I can't fathom how anyone can be OK with her arrest for being rude.

 

Being rude is not what got her arrested.

Yes it is. If she's not rude to that officer, she gets a ticket and goes on with her life. Her rudeness was the base on which that entire situation was built.

The bolded is true. But that's not why she was arrested.

But it led directly to her arrest.

 

Law enforcement is akin to customer service. The customer/citizen can come in with any attitude they want and sh#t all over you, but at no point are you to return that(assuming a typical traffic stop/no weapons/felons). Exception being if they threaten you in some way. You are payed to remain calm and resolve the issue in a professional manor, not give lip back to them. That doesn't mean you can't inform them that you don't appreciate their attitude, but you don't do it with snarky comments that escalate the situation.

 

As much as I hate The Nighly Show, Larry Williams has a pretty good break down of the confrontation and it's escalation. It's worth the couple minutes to watch it.

[Landlord]

I don't know this isn't as close to cut and dry as anyone would like.

 

 

Even Fox News and DONALD TRUMP were adamant that she shouldn't have been in jail, because she shouldn't have been arrested, because she didn't break the law or do anything wrong.

[BIGREDIOWAN]

In 2011, 72 law enforcement officers were killed in the line of duty. Three of those killed were shot by their own weapon. That's 4% of all officers killed in 2011. That's not a "large number." ONE officer killed (let alone killed with their own weapon) is too many, but let's not exaggerate the numbers here.

 

Unfortunately, the United States and the various police forces across the country don't keep track of how many people are killed by the police every year. An article in the Washington Post quotes Jim Fisher, a former FBI agent and criminal justice professor, who states that in 2011 607 people were fatally shot by the Police - to the best of his ability to track down data.

 

So yes, it's dangerous for the police out there. Too dangerous. But it's statistically far more dangerous for citizens to be involved with the police than for the police to be involved with citizens.

And how many of those 607 were African-American? Oh, that's right, that would be against the national agenda towards law enforcement being racist so it doesn't matter.

 

And in 2011 the United States estimated populations was 311.7 million, 607 is well less than 1%, approx .00000195% of the population during that time, so not a large number either. Despite the fact that you are basically saying that the public shouldn't deal with the police and make it sounds like we are criminals with your last statement. Which is the unfortunate thoughts that shouldn't be coming out of peoples mouths because they aren't true.

[BIGREDIOWAN]

 

 

 

 

So ignore the media, and ignore the "cop haters." BRI, you know I'm not a cop hater, we've talked about my mom, and you know I'm not against the police.

 

This arrest was wrong. That officer should have just given her a ticket and moved on. She didn't need to be arrested.

 

I haven't made it all the way through the video but I don't think saying the arrest was wrong is accurate. The officer could have done things differently. I don't think it had to happen that way. But he also gave her several chances to drop it and instead she just kept piling it on.

 

I think you may be assuming he was going to arrest her as soon as he asked her to get out of the car. I'm not sure that's a proper assumption. I don't think that was a necessary step but I don't think he was necessarily going to arrest her at that point either. But then the confrontation became physical and at that point the arrest was warranted, imo.

 

Definitely both parties at fault. I guess we can argue as to who bears more of the blame but it's fairly equal as far as I have seen so far. It's easy to say "he should have ignored her actions" but that's kind of a cop out (no pun intended).

 

 

 

The only thing I'm assuming is that a belligerent attitude on the part of a citizen is not enough to allow a police officer to arrest them for a minor traffic violation.

 

She failed to use her turn signal. No matter how crabby or grumpy she was about it, she did not need to be arrested as a result of that conversation. The officer needed to write her a ticket and move on with his day, period, end of story. At no point should he have allowed her civil liberties to take a back seat to his ego. He was upset she was being an ass, and he arrested her.

 

If we're OK with police arresting us because we have a bad attitude, we're no longer able to claim this as "the land of the free." That's a huge, huge, huge step to take.

 

 

I agree. But that's what I'm saying. I don't think he had any intention of arresting her for being crabby or grumpy. I'm not even sure he was planning to arrest her when he told her to get out of the car. We simply don't know at what point he decided to arrest her. But after there was a physical altercation, she deserved to be arrested. Could he have handled the situation differently to prevent that? Absolutely. But she could have as well.

 

 

The physical altercation should never have happened, though. That's the problem here - at zero point in that situation should it ever, ever, ever have escalated to that point. The officer is the person escalating that, not the citizen. The citizen is a crabby a-hole. That does not give the officer permission to escalate it, or to ultimately arrest her.

 

Had he simply written the ticket and left, she would not have been arrested. The person with the control in that situation was the officer, period.

 

Her attitude, her belligerence, has zero bearing on that. The fault lies with the officer because he was in control of the situation at all times.

 

Nothings as black and white as you like to make it seem. When he asked her to step out of the car you are assuming it was because she wouldn't put the cigarette out, we don't know that, assumptions are just that, assumptions. She decided to tell him he didn't have the right to do so, not necessarily true, but the officer could be wrong, that would be up for the courts to decide, it's a grey area, not black and white. At that point the officer continued to give her orders which she refused, at this point she could be interfering with the officers actions. If the officer was found wrong in court for trying to call her out of the vehicle then the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine comes into play. Certainly her behavior went downhill from there and we can't see what's occurring on the side of the road due to the camera angle. If the officer is found wrong in court, they drop the charges, she has her opportunity to file a complaint and a civil suit from there on. She chose to kill herself in jail for whatever reason instead of seeing that through.

 

The family is also assuming the jail killed her on some level and the media is looking for another nugget to run with to get the "hate the police" train rolling again.

[BIGREDIOWAN]

 

 

 

 

As citizens we should never be OK with a law officer escalating what amounts to a bad attitude to the level that someone's civil liberties are taken away. I can't fathom how anyone can be OK with her arrest for being rude.

Being rude is not what got her arrested.

Yes it is. If she's not rude to that officer, she gets a ticket and goes on with her life. Her rudeness was the base on which that entire situation was built.

The bolded is true. But that's not why she was arrested.

But it led directly to her arrest.

 

Law enforcement is akin to customer service. The customer/citizen can come in with any attitude they want and sh#t all over you, but at no point are you to return that(assuming a typical traffic stop/no weapons/felons). Exception being if they threaten you in some way. You are payed to remain calm and resolve the issue in a professional manor, not give lip back to them. That doesn't mean you can't inform them that you don't appreciate their attitude, but you don't do it with snarky comments that escalate the situation.

 

As much as I hate The Nighly Show, Larry Williams has a pretty good break down of the confrontation and it's escalation. It's worth the couple minutes to watch it.

 

Easy to say until your the one in the middle of the situation and in some cases no matter what you say to that individual they won't listen to you and they want to continue to argue and be uncooperative. We aren't in the customer service business, we WILL NOT satisfy the citizens we serve to 100% satisfaction by the very nature of our job. The "customer" isn't always right in our world, whether they want to agree with that or not. Your attitude, whether you like it or not, may directly play into whether you are going to get a citation or not. The officer doesn't HAVE to give you a warning, they can give you a citation instead if you want to be an ass. Or you can be honest, cordial, and go through the motions and you may only get a warning. Your driving record and the violations obviously play into that as well. There's been situations where I could've arrested someone or did and I could pile the charges on and didn't because they were either honest or decent and treated me like a human being and went with the process and didn't turn into a total a$$. This could be considered the customer service portion of the job if you wanted to see it that way.

 

Let me explain further on the highlighted section. I'll speak with the county attorney and let them know what's going on and how the process is going. Ultimately I let them make the decision on what they feel the most comfortable with for when it goes to court. This not only speeds the process up, it helps out the defendant on some level and helps the court look into the situation a little more.

[knapplc]

Easy to say until your the one in the middle of the situation and in some cases no matter what you say to that individual they won't listen to you and they want to continue to argue and be uncooperative. We aren't in the customer service business, we WILL NOT satisfy the citizens we serve to 100% satisfaction by the very nature of our job. The "customer" isn't always right in our world, whether they want to agree with that or not. Your attitude, whether you like it or not, may directly play into whether you are going to get a citation or not. The officer doesn't HAVE to give you a warning, they can give you a citation instead if you want to be an ass. Or you can be honest, cordial, and go through the motions and you may only get a warning. Your driving record and the violations obviously play into that as well. There's been situations where I could've arrested someone or did and I could pile the charges on and didn't because they were either honest or decent and treated me like a human being and went with the process and didn't turn into a total a$$.

 

Let me explain further on the highlighted section. I'll speak with the county attorney and let them know what's going on and how the process is going. Ultimately I let them make the decision on what they feel the most comfortable with for when it goes to court. This not only speeds the process up, it helps out the defendant on some level and helps the court look into the situation a little more.

 

This is scary stuff.

 

EDIT - this is not the post I originally replied to. It has been edited to add the 2nd paragraph, which did not exist when I quoted it.

Edited July 25, 2015 by knapplc