From TSA agents being our friendly local social terrorist molesting people at airports and railway platforms, to cops who maim and murder the very people they are sworn to protect. One need look no further than our own police-state column to see the reality of the tyranny we now live under.
But this article is not about bad cops or bad laws.
Today I want to talk about the other side of the coin. I want to have a look at the genuine cop-haters. The folks who will, no matter what, always say that the cop is wrong. My friends, this is another hypocrisy I cannot abide. The cop is not always wrong. It does a disservice to those of us who are striving for genuine and positive changes, to pick at justifiable police activity as being some travesty of justice and abuse of authority. The reality is that the job of a police officer is a very difficult one. One that does include justified instances of all sorts of unsavory acts, up to and including the use of deadly force. Just because a cop shoots someone dead, does not mean that a murder has been committed.
I have seen instances in the past of people ripping on the police for simply doing their job. That is no more fair-play than a cop planting a joint in your glovebox.
What got me going on this subject today was the following pic and video which has been splashed across anti-law-enforcement blogs and Facebook pages.
I got completely suckered in by the caption. What is frightening of course, is that the performance of our police forces made this entirely plausible, and I started salivating about the prospect of posting yet another instance of a cop going berserk.
What I got instead though, was a dose of cop-haters going out of their way to be offended by a cop doing his job.
Let's have a look at the video now, before I comment further.
The video starts as the officer engages the suspect vehicle and initiates a traffic stop. The vehicle matches the description given by other motorists who reported a reckless and/or speeding driver. This is confirmed by the suspect himself in his own video description.
"...Pulled over for no reason except someone said I was swerving on the interstate a lil bit because i had broke the stick shift knob and was screwing it back on. Is this a legal traffic stop. I thought officers had to witness me committing a violation but not this case. Someone was pulling some road rage making up that I almost hit them when in fact they cut me off and I had to slam on my breaks because she limited my distance to stop..."
So right here he has admitted that he was indeed swerving. I don't care if he was screwing on a broken shift knob, texting, or getting his knob polished. If you are swerving in traffic, especially at high speed on an interstate, you are putting lives in danger. That is reckless.
Then, another motorist also complains that the subject was driving recklessly, but he claims to be the "victim" of road rage here, and that the second complainant (presumably the female in the video) had actually caused a hazard. I find that claim on his part to be dubious, especially considering other admissions on the part of the suspect.
Regardless, the officer had several complaints of an erratic vehicle. This certainly is enough probable cause to initiate a traffic stop. No, an officer does not have to see an offense in order to investigate a potential crime. (Note that the suspect was never charged with other highway infractions which were not committed in the presence of the officer.) You will also notice in the video, that the suspect vehicle has malfunctioning tail/brake lights, which is also probable cause for a traffic stop.
In short, the officer engages a suspect vehicle that was reportedly, and by later admission of the operator, driving erratically. The reasons were, of course, unknown to the officer and not legally justified anyway.
The officer sees the suspect vehicle lurch forward, against a red light, but with another vehicle in front of the suspect vehicle blocking the path. The suspect tries to explain this by saying that "the light was about to turn green" but this may in fact be another traffic violation, as it is in many jurisdictions, to proceed against a stop light once stopped. That would be yet another point of probable cause, and a ticketable offense committed in the presence of the officer. At the very least, the officer would be right to see this as a sign of anxious or aggressive driving. And for what reason, the officer had yet to determine. Was the suspect attempting to flee, was the vehicle in distress and unsafe for the roadway, or was the operator simply dangerously incompetant?
At that point the suspect vehicle chooses to proceed, rather than remain stopped. Again, by his own admission, the suspect had indeed seen the lights of the police car, was stopped, and chose to proceed anyway. That is a violation of the law. To generally paraphrase most traffic codes, you must stop and pull to the side if possible, when it is safe to do so. The suspect was stopped, there was no danger, and chose to proceed anyway.
"Yes I was stopped but he didn't say to stay there. Its always taught you pull over for emergency vehicles. How is this resisting I need to know? I had never been in trouble and any other time I had been pulled over I get yelled at to pull over to a safer spot. Well not this time."
His muddled self-justification is actually hard to interpret there. But right off the bat he makes a critical error in judgement. The officer most certainly did say to "stay there" through use of his warning beacons and siren. Not only did the suspect fail to yield, but also, willingly chose to proceed after acknowledging the police presence and lawful order to yield. Just because officers in the past had "always" yelled at him to pull over to a safer spot, that was not the case in this instance. The officer issued no such command.
Furthermore, it is hardly reasonable to move an almost completely disabled vehicle from a side street onto a main thoroughfare, as we saw was done in this video. I don't see that as reasonable even without the police presence, which is also something that the officer likely considered.
So at this point the officer sees a suspect vehicle that is stalling out repeatedly, has a broken taillight, is leaking fluid all over the ground, with a driver who has been driving erratically, aggressively proceeding against a red light, and then for some unknown reason chooses to proceed into heavy traffic rather than remain stopped on a side street. The motorist was actually creating a more dangerous situation, not moving to safer ground.
The officer, at this point, is reasonably jacked-up with all sorts of suspicion. Is the person drunk or high? Was the truck damaged from hitting another car or even a pedestrian perhaps? Is the driver simply woefully incompetent? Maybe in emotional distress, or having a medical problem such as a seizure or some sort of dementia? Even a diabetic episode? Is the truck blowing fluid all over the place because the suspect just beat the hell out of the motor fleeing from the scene of an axe murder at a daycare center? Who the hell knows? With all those questions and more, would you walk up to a vehicle like that with a fine "Howdy doo? What seems to be the trouble today?"
Hell no. I would pull my Glock and and give him a straight "what da fuck man?!"
And to break it down even further, ask yourself this. How often would you actually love to pull a Glock on some asshat driver and ask him that very question before you proceed to break his cellphone and knock out his high beams with a lug wrench? I have been tempted to do just that many times. Now imagine it is your job to actually stop that person, but you can't even give him so much as a Three-Stooges eye-poke? That you have to swallow your emotions, protect yourself from a possibly fatal encounter, and act professionally. That takes balls of steel and an almost inhuman sense of humility at the same time.
So to wrap this up here, like I said to start, I have a lot of beef with cops in general. From the laws that they enforce, to how they enforce them. But at the end of the day, fuck that job. Not for me man. I would crack someone in the head.
To my cop-hating buds out there, don't get it twisted my friends. A lot of assholery comes from the thin-blue-line. But don't believe the hype either. Propaganda works both ways. And to my police officer friends, this is for you you blue bastads! Lol. Gotta give you some props once in a while.
And be safe on the roads all my friends. Don't be an asshat. Stay off the fuckin phone. No, you are not special, you cannot use the phone and drive, you are not superhuman. (And this goes for you cops out there too, exempt or not.)
Can You Use The Phone And Drive?
Here is the full video description by the self-desribed suspect in this matter:
Here is the in dash camera from a police officer in Lebanon, Indiana. While he was behind me at the stop light the truck kept dying because it was old and over heating from being on the interstate the radiator fluid was leaking out. I had borrowed this truck in Lafayette, Indiana and its been sometime since I had driven a clutch. The guy that let me borrow the truck told me it sometimes overheats. It needed a thermostat or something. I got charged Felony Resisting Law Enforcement with a motor vehicle. Is this justified. I pulled over in a safer spot outta of the middle of the road. I had no idea I was being stopped but I noticed during the stop light and waved my hand to signal okay I'll pull over. Yes I was stopped but he didn't say to stay there. Its always taught you pull over for emergency vehicles. How is this resisting I need to know? I had never been in trouble and any other time I had been pulled over I get yelled at to pull over to a safer spot. Well not this time. I need help because I was scared into taking the plea or I would lose the case my attorney Buchanan Law Office Inc: Buchanan Pamela said. She was appointed as my legal counsel since I couldn't afford an attorney. I waiting 1 year going to probation and I even filled to fire her but at court I in the last minute had been convinced by her that I was not going to do any different thru anyone else. Her husband is a Prosecutor for the Town Of Lebanon and I feel that this is all crap. This took place in Lebanon, Indiana. Pulled over for no reason except someone said I was swerving on the interstate a lil bit because i had broke the stick shift knob and was screwing it back on. Is this a legal traffic stop. I thought officers had to witness me committing a violation but not this case. Someone was pulling some road rage making up that I almost hit them when in fact they cut me off and I had to slam on my breaks because she limited my distance to stop. Is there any other options I can pursue to sue the law office or something I just wanted to get the process over with because 2 years was a long time for probation and I figured maybe she was right what do I know I have no other way of fighting it. NEED HELP. THIS IS KEEPING ME FROM HAVING A NORMAL LIFE I CANT GET A CAREER TO TAKE CARE OF MY WIFE AND KID. I AM SO FRUSTRATED WITH THIS.
This article courtesy of Station6Underground, used by permission.
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