I’ve taught in a number of universities and colleges. The only time I ever had a conflict with a student, it was with a student in a Law and Security program. He didn’t submit any papers, did not write any exams, and did not attend any classes. When he learned that he failed, he stormed into my office, launched himself across my desk, and attacked me.
Although obviously an extreme, the student had something in common with most of his fellow students. Most of them were not people you would want to have in a position of authority. Fortunately, the police college in my province makes a serious effort at identifying and not admitting the power trippers. The police college has a long way to go, but at least they recognize the problem and have been contentious in trying to mitigate it. And no, I am not aware of any of that law and security program’s graduates being accepted into the police college.
But realistically, should that affect law-enforcement decisions? Do you get a get-out-of-misdemeanor-free card because you are on the way to a funeral? And how can a cop reasonably be expected to verify that?
If a cop stops someone for speeding, they should not be expected to have to listen to the driver explain WHY he was speeding, barring very extreme situations such as a pregnant lady in the car at that very instant.
It might affect our personal sympathy for the plight of the family, but it should not affect the cop’s actions.
It makes it a heck of a lot more likely that justice will be served. (Also note that if cops always have lapel cams and dash cams, and if everyone KNOWS that cops have lapel cams and dash cams, then that means that when a white cop pulls over a black driver and asks him to get out of the car, the driver should have additional confidence that whatever is going to happen is NOT going to be blatantly abusive, since everything is being recorded at all times…)
If a little basic decency is beyond your comprehension, I have nothing else to add. The police constantly encounter people at bad times and should be aware that they’re often under stress. Give them the fucking ticket and let them go on their way. There was no need to turn this into a standoff.
Only because without a camera, the odds were zero. I think they’re still pretty low, but I’ll grant you that anything is more than zero.
Unfortunately I’m not sure that’s true either. Even if everything is recorded, cameras sometimes “malfunction” at convenient times and the police are not always forthcoming with that evidence. There are also data limitations on body cameras, which in some (all?) cases only function when the officer chooses to turn them on - and then they may not record the entire incident.
Are you black? If not, then you aren’t in a position to judge the fear the man had in getting out of the car.
You see, cops have guns to protect themselves when they feel threatened. The man sitting in the car had only the car protecting him from whatever the police might be willing to do to him once that layer of protection was removed. He’s seen it happen far too often to men just like him to take that risk and possibly leave his children fatherless. And yes, those kinds of thoughts that seem absurd to you, are exactly the kinds of thoughts that run through the mind of a scared black man when a swarm of white police officers who’ve already shown a propensity to overreact by pulling their weapons on them, are surrounding their car and not letting them leave … over a seat belt violation.
Not to a black man. See above.
And it’s silly for you to pretend that black men in America don’t have a genuine reason to be fearful of removing the one layer of protection they have from physical violence when confronted by angry and unreasonable police officers.
There are no laws in the United States that require anyone to carry identification with them except when they are operating a motor vehicle or are a passenger on a commercial airline. Period.
Although 24 states have “stop-and-identify” laws, you still don’t have to have any form of ID on you; you’re merely required to provide your true name and address if asked. Period.
Even Indiana, where this incident occurred, does not require a passenger to have any kind of ID on them.
Yes you can, and you must. See the statute above. A person is only required to tell police officers their name, address and date of birth. No proof is required by law. None.
Again, he attempted numerous times to provide documented evidence of his identity. The cops wouldn’t take it unless he exited the vehicle. What the hell for? He wasn’t posing any kind of threat!
“I’m so sorry officer. I was in such a rush to get to my mother in the hospital before she dies, that I forgot to buckle up.”
“No problem, ma’am, I understand, and I’m sorry for your mother’s condition. I am, however, going to have to write you a ticket. It’s just a $25 fine and you can mail it in. I’ll write it up as quickly as possible so you can get on your way.”
“Thank you officer. And again, I’m sorry about that.”
Because I’m a white woman, that’s what’s happened to me every time I’ve been pulled over.
But noooooooooo, not this time. These folks were black, so the cops had to throw down a spike strip and harass the male passenger. Because black men, you know …
So the next time you’re in a situation in which the cops have pulled you over, and you do something which alarms them (regardless of whether you think that should have alarmed them or not) and they pull their guns, and they aim them at you, and they demand that you get out of the car, what are you going to do? And how is that choice influenced by what you saw happen in this video?
Here’s the way I think about it… the cops definitely escalated things when they pulled out their guns. There are times when cops should pull out guns and times when they should not pull out guns. It’s probably very difficult to really rigorously define when that is appropriate and when it is not, and I’m willing to concede that it is very likely that in this particular case it was grossly inappropriate. But it happened, the situation was what it was. If the cops pulling out their guns was inappropriate, then that should be investigated, judged, etc., and if it turns out that it was in violation of police procedure, or the law, or whatever, then the family should be compensated and the cops should be disciplined, and the local police training intensified, yada yada yada. BUT, whether or not the cops should have drawn their guns, they DID draw their guns, and at that point the people in the car have to react to the situation that is occurring, not the situation that they wish was occurring. I strongly believe that their actions in that situation were VERY foolish.
I made this point previously and I am going to try again. Most people when confronted with unreasonable and illegal orders from police will weigh the benefits and costs to only themselves. The benefits are you most likely end the situation sooner and easier for yourself. The costs are to your self-respect but also the cost that the police have one less challenge to their unreasonable or illegal behavior. This beneficial behavior of incrementally causing change in police behavior is a Public Good, shared by other people in a large radius. Because it is a Public Good, we should not be surprised that it is under-produced.
The people willing to stand up to the cops like this often have experiences or characteristics that make them more willing to do it. One such might be pride or vanity. Daniele Watts was mocked for telling her cop that she had played a role that allowed her to learn something about criminal law, and that she had a publicist. Mahone and Jones may not have acted in a way that is to be universally recommended, and they may not have done what they did only for charitable purposes, but I don’t think they should be criticized for being ornery, they should be thanked.
Taking a step back here for a second, I realize that I’ve started to sound like I’m actively defending the cops’ actions, which is not my intent. For instance, you’re 100% correct, that’s exactly how this should have played out in an ideal world, and the fact that it didn’t play out that way is on the cops far more than it’s on the civilians. What I’m reacting to in this thread is what I perceive as an overreaction in the opposite direction. The family in this case is not civil rights heroes, their actions weren’t brave, they weren’t standing up for our rights. They were just scared and nervous people making foolish choices while under a lot of stress in a shitty situation that they didn’t really deserve to be in.
Do you (and others who have asserted this event is caused in some way by race) really believe that white people are not subject to the same treatment? That a cop would never draw their weapon based on their interpretation of a suspicious move of someone in a vehicle if they are white?
I think if I ever get pulled over - I don’t drive much - the police will be less likely to treat my actions as suspicious or hostile and I’ll get every benefit of the doubt. Science backs me up on that. I also think they’ll be less likely to hassle me and probably less likely to pull me over in the first place. (I’ll add I’m a reasonably well-put-together-looking white guy, which would probably also help.)
At what point, in your view, does noncompliance cease to be foolish?If a cop tells you to get out of the car on a busy highway and strip naked in 30 degree weather, do you think it would be foolish to tell them no? Is resisting only foolish because cops have the means to hurt you, or is it foolish because you think blind deference to cops is good for society? I’m really trying to understand your viewpoint here.
Whether or not the family had reasonable fear is irrelevant to me (even though I think they had reasonable fear). What’s relevant to me is that they acted on their fear in a reasonable fashion, and what did the cops do? They responded with violence in a way that suggests the family was totally justified in fearing them. That is foolish on the cop’s part. The family was brave.
That’s an interesting point, and I see what you’re saying. But I think the issue is a legitimately complicated one. I think there are several things that factor into whether I view someone as being civilly disobedient or noble vs just being stubborn, including:
-whether there’s a clear and specific objection
-whether the person believes that they either DO or SHOULD have the right they are claiming
-whether the protest is likely to cause disruption of other legitimate police activities
-whether the person is willing to accept the consequences of their actions
-whether the person’s actions “feel” like a principled stand vs. fear/selfishness/whatever
In particular, in the Danielle Watts case, we had a very long debate over whether the police had the legal right to temporarily detain her long enough to verify her ID. The legal situation was sufficiently unclear that Bricker started out believing one thing and then was convinced of something else, and many legal experts from various news organizations (and one from UCLA) seemed to disagree with Bricker’s conclusion. Which makes me somewhat skeptical that Danielle Watts knew about Terry stops and the various legal issues involved, realized that she was someone who was reasonably suspected of having committed a misdemeanor, but that misdemeanor was no longer in progress and therefore not a threat to public safety, and therefore the Quint ruling (or whatever it’s called) either did or did not cover her, and therefore they did NOT have the right to detain her, so that when they did detain her, she knew that it was unlawful, and she refused to go along with it, because she placed principle over her own convience; as opposed to, the cops wanted her to do something she didn’t want to do, and she felt entitled to not have that happen to her due to her specialness, so she raised a huge fuss.
I think that “the cop clearly and unambiguously overstepped his legal rights (or wanted to violate my rights), so I objected and refused to comply” is a principled and courageous stand. But real life is fairly rarely so tidy. If every time you interact with a cop you absolutely positively refuse to give the slightest bit of ground until you are 1000% certain that every bit of the cop’s request was 100% certainly constitutional and correct, bearing in mind that the cop may be aware of information that you are not aware of, AND that the cop may be under time or psychological pressure that you are not aware of, there’s some chance that you will in fact end up nobly making a stand and stopping that cop from overreaching, and that cop will learn that lesson and it will make headlines around the country so that everyone else learns about it and you will legitimately have improved cop-civilian interactions everwhere. But there’s also a chance that:
-you will waste a bunch of a cop’s time so he won’t be able to be out doing his job
-you will encounter a really dirty asshole cop and your attitude will cause him to beat you down and the lie about what happened and you’ll never get recourse
-you will encounter a fairly normal cop having a bad day who would have been absolutely happy to give you a talking to and move on, but you end up with a ticket and a court date instead
-you will be WRONG about the situation and it will turn out that this cop DID in fact legally have the right to make whatever request is under discussion due to various complicated factors, and you will attempt to make a stand and then end up down several thousand dollars of lawyer fees and many hours of your life
So if that’s the approach you want to take, go right ahead. I think a better approach is to cooperate with cops within fairly wide ranges of reasonable requests, while recording very carefully everything that happened, and politely checking when something is a request vs. an order; and if you think that cop was overstepping his authority, bring a suit or complaint, along with copious documentation, AFTER the fact.
Go watch the video again. It wasn’t simply because the passenger wouldn’t get out of the car, it was because he repeatedly refused to get out of the car. That kind of behavior raises red flags big-time. He earned that tasing, pure and simple.
That’s a good question, and I don’t think there’s a clear answer to it. I think there are various factors in play:
(1) How clear and distinct the line is between what is allowed and what is not allowed
(2) Whether this is something that would be allowed in some situations similar to the current situation, but not the current situation (for instance, there is NEVER a situation in which the police stop a car, and then have the legal right to tell the driver to take their clothes off… there ARE situations in which they have the legal right to handcuff the driver and demand to see their license, for instance, if the driver strongly resembles someone who is currently the subject of an APB, which of course the driver might not even be aware of)
(3) Whether the cop is actively threatening to use force. At which point, purely for self-preservation, I’m doing it. If I’m stopped for what seems to me to be a routine traffic stop, and the cop is talking to me, then suddenly he draws his gun, points it at me, and says “open up your trunk NOW”, I’m opening up my trunk. Now I think that cops don’t normally have the right to search your trunk during a traffic stop, but (a) I’m not 100% sure, (b) there are probably some exceptions, and the cop may have reason to think he’s in one of those situations where the exception applies, even if he’s wrong, and (c) he’s pointing a GUN at me.
(4) Whether I think this is part of an ongoing pattern. As far as I know, there’s not a pattern of abuse in which California cops are requesting that people who are not at all drunk take breathalyzer tests and then falsifying the reports or something. So if a cop pulled me over and asked me to take a breathalyzer test, I probably would, because (a) I know I’d pass it because I never drink, and (b) I’d assume that he legitimately thought I was swerving or something. I wouldn’t refuse on principle unless I was both super-duper-mega-sure that I was on completely sound legal footing, AND thought that there was a epidemic of invalid breathalyzing, one worth fighting against, going on; rather than one cop failing to understand what the regulations were.
(Granted, I’m saying all this from the viewpoint of a white man… when you toss in race, there’s clearly a pattern of abuse and overstepping of boundaries, which makes it much more likely that any interaction is likely to fall into the “pattern of abuse” category. As I’ve repeatedly pointed out, it’s a complicated issue…)
Still, I have to wonder why you’ve characterized their actions as very foolish. Do you think their actions were foolish because the act of resisting endangered their lives and the lives of their kids? Or do you think they were foolish because you think they broke the law or risked breaking the law?
“Foolish” to me is playing with a loaded gun or sticking your hand in an alligator’s open mouth. If you believe we need to treat cops like loaded guns and alligators because you can’t imagine a world in which cops can be trusted to act rationally and compassionately, then I find that sad. It’s exactly what is wrong with our police worshipping culture. If we assume cops will act like trigger-happy thugs and we placate them continuously, then they will act like trigger-happy thugs.
I assume that the male in the passenger seat, the one who repeatedly refused to exit the vehicle, was aware that there was still a young girl in the back seat.