A woman calls the cops in Forney, TX to report someone possibly waving a gun out of the window of a speeding car. Her call:
What do the police do? They pull over a burgundy Nissan Maxima occupied by a mother and her young children and order them out of the car at gunpoint. I’ve only stayed in Texas once, overnight. Could be a regional thing, but does ‘beige’ or ‘tan’ mean ‘dark reddish’ there? Does ‘Toyota’ mean any Japanese car (or any Asian import)?
No
IME, anyways. Now, that’s not to say that some ONE person may do that, because ignorant people exist in all areas, but as a regular Texas thing? Nope.
And now, we await all the anecdotal posts stating that “I heard it, yeah, totally a thing.”
Can’t say I’ve ever heard “Toyota” used as the generic name for Japanese cars.
My guess is that the woman knew it was a japanese import, but didn’t actually know whether the Maxima in question was a Nissan or a Toyota.
Still, I’m guessing that if you’re a licensed peace officer in the DFW area, that Forney isn’t exactly where the best choose to work. I’d bet low pay and a mostly rural area make it fairly unattractive to all but the actual local yokel cops. Hence the stupidity of pulling over a burgundy Maxima with a white mother and child, instead of a tan Toyota with 4 black males.
Remember, the police officer is getting a description of the suspect second hand and there’s the possibility that the eyewitness’s statements don’t match with reality. I don’t know about the rest of you, but depending on the lighting I sometimes have difficulty being absolutely sure what color a vehicle is at night. I’m not going to argue that the actions of the officer in this case was correct. But I don’t think he was an idiot for taking interest in the car.
And, no, Toyota is not a generic term for a Japanese/Asian car in Texas.
If a witness or police officer cannot differentiate between a light shade like tan or beige, and a dark shade like burgundy or maroon, is it useful to include a colour at all? Why not just look for ‘a car’? Possibly with people in it.
