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Police don't get to act on every imaginable what-if, they must act reasonably based on the specifics of the case in front of them. Watch the video again and pay attention to the time in the body cams.
The officer knocks on the window and the driver rolls it down and hands him his paperwork while complaining about the knocking. As the officer goes to walk away the driver rolls the window back up. The officer tells him to roll it back down, the driver opens it some. The officer tells him not to roll it up again or he would be taken out of the car. Within 7 seconds the officer changed his mind, ordered him out, and then dragged him out.
Important notes here. 1) not rolling the window all the way down or rolling it back up while the officer walks away are not illegal acts. There is no case law saying you must roll it all the way down and leave it down. 2) while it's down the officer could see inside and did not note any obvious safety concerns. 3) he wanted the window down while he was walking away and couldn't see inside anyway. 4) the driver never refused exiting the car and was not given a reasonable amount of time to comply. He said something like "just a moment" when asked once and was dragged out within 7 seconds. 5) the officers don't later say that they had a safety concern, they say "when we tell you to do something you have to do it" in reference to the window, which again is not an order backed up by case law unlike the order to exit which again was not refused and not given reasonable time for the driver to comply.
You could always imagine a what-if that lets the cops off, but that's not the way the courts do or the public should view these cases. The primary officer was unreasonable at almost every point. Later in the video he points to a 25ft law that isn't in effect yet and then says that he has suddenly changed it to 50ft. He was on a power trip because the driver didn't immediately show him proper deference.
That's a lot of words to admit you have trouble finding common ground so that people can make meaningful change.
Oh definitely, and the way we get that change is by instinctively supporting the officer's decisions because of a thousand imagined what-ifs. Of course that officer had to shoot Sonya Massey because she might have thrown the water at them while cowering with her hands up. She might have had a wmd under her night dress! /s
Again, I'm not talking about any instance other than the one we have been looking at together here. Personally, I believe cops should always assume they are going too be on trial every time they shoot someone they should know it is always going to be a potentially life altering event for them.
I'm this case, the driver didn't say "oh buddy, you fucked up, see you in court" while complying, he showed the officer his distain and reluctance every step of the way and at that point the officer is going to ask themselves if they might be in danger, and if they think they might be, they are trained to do something about it. In this case taking him into custody.
Question for you. If he wanted to, could he have shot the cop? Was there a gun in the car?
You're implying here that he failed to comply with lawful orders, which ones exactly did he fail to comply with? As I outlined before he was ordered to not roll his window back up again and he did not (even if he had, that alone is not a lawful order as no case law or Florida law allows an officer to order someone to roll it all the way down and keep it down for the duration of the stop). He was ordered out of the car (a lawful order as outlined by case law if the officer has reasonable suspicion that he is armed and dangerous. The officer makes no claim to the driver being armed and dangerous, much less having reasonable suspicion of such. This was not an armed robbery stop) and within 7 seconds was dragged out of the car. The driver never said no and was not given time to comply. While you must exit when ordered (again, if the officer has what he needs to make that order lawful), it is not reasonable to drag someone out after only 7 seconds.
If he had failed to follow lawful orders, why didn't they charge him with that?
Having distain or reluctance are not illegal acts and are not grounds for reasonable suspicion that someone is armed and dangerous. While a person intent on hurting officers would likely have distain, they would be more likely to act cool and calm until they pull out their gun as to keep the officer from sensing a threat and reacting to it. There are also far more people who have distain for officers and do not which them harm. It is not objectively reasonable for an officer to believe that every person who does not show them sufficient deference is a safety concern, especially not a sufficient concern to justify physical violence against them.
If he had wanted to, why wouldn't he have already done it? Why didn't he pull out a gun (there is no indication by him or the officers that a gun was involved)? Why wouldn't he have tried harming them as they pulled him out? Again, your what-ifs are not relevant to a discussion about the reasonableness of the officer's actions. An officer doesn't get to do whatever he feels like as long as he can imagine a possible harm.
Take a look at all of the officer's actions and attempt to see them from a reasonable person's perspective. He pulled over a guy for speeding, not armed robbery. He got upset only after the driver rolled the window up as he was walking away. He gave the driver only 7 seconds to respond before using physical violence. He punched the driver while he was handcuffed. He lied about a 25ft law and then expanded it beyond what the made-up law would allow. After 18 minutes of having him in handcuffs, he only started to write the citations, the whole reason for the stop, when a supervisor asked him if they were already done. Officers can only hold a personal as long as it would reasonably take to accomplish the goal of the stop, in this case to write the tickets. Every step of the way, the officer acting unreasonably. I don't care if you can imagine a different scenario where he might have been justified. In this case he was not.
You're arguing that we should defer to the officers because of a million imaginary what-ifs. That's not how this works.
You make a great point. I can see why cops would be on edge and would rather risk taking someone into custody unnecessarily rather than putting their life at risk. Based on your reasoning they would probably be hyper vigilant for signs a stop might go wrong. Given an employers responsibility to provide a safe workplace, they are probably trained to err on the side of caution, right?
A rather obvious diss and strawman argument, but I see your point. What you are ignoring though is the reasonable person who is employed as a cop. If you had that job, how much would you be willing to risk death on a daily basis to give people the benefit of the doubt?
So sue the fuck out of him! That's what the courts are for. That's a separate issue from whether the cop decided he was non-cooperative at a level that warranted intervention.
That's the whole point of qualified immunity. Cops are the ones willing to wade into the shit on a daily basis. They put their lives on the line, so they get the discretion to decide they are going to cuff you for the rest of the interaction if they feel unsafe.
If they break the law, sue them. If policy is bad, lobby for change. People wrote the laws, people set the culture, people can change it. But just whining online that some sports guy you like wasn't treated as politely as you would have liked is like having a quick wank, it makes you feel good, but won't change anything.
If you think you can do better, go apply for a job with the force, show us what the police could be. If you are going to let someone else do it so you don't have to take the risk and can sit safely at home whining about it. Sure you can get some attention, but you aren't going to be taken very seriously.
No. Absolutely not. "Officer safety" isn't a blank check. Officer's first duty is to the law and the constitution, even before their own safety. You don't get to violate someone's right because you were scared, especially when the officers never once mention a safety threat. The only thing they say when they pull out the driver is "when we tell you to do something, you do it." You can keep imagining that this is about safety, but it's transparently not. It's about an officer who got butt-hurt when someone didn't suck his dick hard enough.
You are not a cop I assume, which is why I said person. The legal standard is "reasonable officer". The point still stands, nothing he did was objectively reasonable by the legal standard.
If I was a cop, I would recognize that I volunteered for a dangerous job where my primary responsibility is to the rights of the citizens I supposedly protect. I would not violate someone's rights just because I had a completely unjustified fear. Are we just going to brush past the fact that this unjustified fear just happened to be directed towards a black man? That must just be coincidence, right?
Well, no it's not. The courts determine what is reasonable and legal. The cop doesn't get to violate rights or laws even if he thinks the situation warranted intervention. He must have an objectively reasonable and legal reason for that intervention. Short of that, what he did was unreasonable and illegal. That's the whole point. And again, you haven't pointed to a single thing he did as showing non-cooperation, especially not enough to warrant all that followed in a legal way. As I've outlined numerous times now, he didn't refuse any order given. The only one he didn't comply with fast enough for the officer was the order to exit in which the officer gave him 7 seconds before resorting to violence.
It's shocking how little you understand about how this all works. QI gives them legal protection for things that are not well established at the time of the interaction. It gives them cover for interpreting a law in the grey. Pulling someone out without reasonable suspicion they are armed and dangerous is not a grey area, it was decided by the Supreme Court decades ago. Not using excessive force is per-se well established (meaning QI does not apply when using unreasonable and unjustified force, like say punching a handcuffed suspect). I'll gloss over your completely insane framing of officers as "putting their lives on the line" and "willing to wade into this shit" and just say, do yourself a favor and look up the Castle Rock case and Uvalde before trying to suck them off next time.
I don't give a shit about sports ball or this guy in the slightest. I had never even heard his name until this news broke. This isn't about "not being polite enough". The driver was treated in an illegal manner by a power-tripping cop because he didn't act as nicely and apologetically as this officer thought he was entitled to. That officer can get fucked. And the fact that the police union stated their full support of him before the video even came out should tell you something.
What exactly would you suggest to make things better? This kind of talk online led to the largest protests in American history just a few years ago and after months that led to nothing. And you aren't here advocating for change, you've been defending the officer and presuming he is right about everything this whole conversation.
Oh yes, the classic "our job is so hard, why don't you try it". Got any more stereotypical cop defense lines you wanna throw out? Maybe a "he should have just complied" in there? No thanks, I have too much self-respect to be a pig. That being said, I don't have to be a quarterback to know when a footballer makes a bad play. I don't have to be a doctor to know not to listen to a quack. I don't have to be a cop to know a power-tripping tyrant when I see one.
Like I said, if all you do is complain online, nothing will change, you said it yourself that they just ignore protests these days.
I'm not saying there aren't problems, I'm saying that all your answers are cop outs. (Unintentional pun, but I'll take it)
If you won't be a cop because they are all degenerates, then don't be surprised if the only ones who want to the job are power trippers. If you can't talk about the problems in a way policymakers relate to, they are going to ignore you. Have you talked to county or city commissioners? Have you gotten involved at a local level? I'm not saying you personally have to solve this, but if everyone has the same attitude, who steps up?
But it's easy to talk about sucking dicks and otherize, and whine online.
And to answer the question you dodged earlier, according to the news, he later told the cops he did have a 9 mil in the car. So it isn't unreasonable of them to assume anyone they come across could be armed, he actually was.