Army officer sues Virginia police over violent traffic stop

[JRB]

Lots of wrong all around.

'I'm afraid to get out'; 'you should be' would have me honestly expecting to get shot by that cop no matter what I did. If you're pointing a gun at me and directly giving me reason to fear compliance with your commands, it only gets much worse for everyone from there. That was an incredibly poor response from that officer. Giving anyone reason to fear compliance with your commands just begs for resistance.

I'm also baffled as to why the fuck that LT has a goatee in uniform. There are many possible religious exemptions for beards (Sikhs, etc) but not a single one that would authorize a trimmed goatee like that.
If I were a cop with my mil service background, I'd be suspecting the legitimacy of that uniform because of the goatee. The 'stolen valor' types routinely get egregiously dumb shit like that wrong when they're cosplaying as a service member. Furthermore, using US military uniforms as a disguise to reduce suspicion when you're doing evil/illegal shit is a well-known phenomenon especially here in border states.

I'm assuming at this point that his status as a LT has been vetted, and honestly he did enough wrong in this shit to lose his commission. I've known other LT's of other flavors/genetics that lost their commissions for less, (dumb stuff at house parties, showing up at a political rally in uniform, etc) Senior Army leadership gets *really* annoyed when a commissioned officer does dumb shit in public *and* in uniform.
Given the politics though, I'm guessing he'll just get a big payday from this LE agency and there's going to be a couple of unemployed cops.


Police in my area, as aggressive as they have been in the past, have never pulled me over for 'nothing'. In general, especially in today's world, police will not pull anyone over for 'nothing'. I deal with any and all traffic stops from the premise of knowing that some LEO has RAS at minimum. It's on me to verify that it's a legitimate LEO, explain myself truthfully as asked, when asked, and dispel that LEO's suspicions of any further wrongdoing if possible. Then I should do all I can to professionally and safely accept a ticket if one is warranted, and comply with all of the officer's commands fully and immediately regardless of how reasonable I think they are.
Even if that officer is 100% wrong, being fully and completely compliant is both the safest path for my well being, and the best path for effective legal recourse against any wrongdoing.

Barring any genuine reason to fear for my life/limb/eyesight *even if I do comply* as was so poorly articulated by that officer, that is. As much as I'm bothered by the LT's appearance and behavior overall, that officer's words there are really what bugs me the most in this whole incident.

[trailrunner]

The "he was looking for a payday" line of thought makes hardly any sense to me.

There's a whole subculture on YouTube, including sovereign citizens and 1st amendment auditors, that do this for fun and (presumably) profit. He repeated many of the same lines those folks use, and he was quick to position his cell phone camera in just the right place. He looked like he knew what he was doing. In fact, I don't think he was afraid, because he calmly took his phone out and put it on the dash. I didn't really see much fear in his face, and that is a common thing that the YouTubers say to stall the cops.

[jetfire]

This entire thread is a reminder why when a friend of mine was contemplating getting out of the USAF and going into civilian law enforcement I told him "fuck no, ride the cake job for 20 and then go open a bar or something"

[ford.304]

This video just highlights the vast gap in what 'normal people' thing is a reasonable way to interact with the police and what things look like behind the badge.

Most people I've talked to naturally see this from the eyes of the LT

1) He wasn't doing anything illegal (or so he thought)
2) He's "one of the good guys" so he deserves an explanation and politeness when he doesn't do anything violent.
3) He's "not resisting" because he isn't doing anything violent, he's keeping his voice calm, and he's being respectful.
4) He drove to someplace well-lit, which is absolutely something that people *tell* you to do to be safe.
5) He just wants an explanation of why he got pulled over so he can explain that this is really just am minor thing. "If they'd just answer his question this all goes away."

I can absolutely see the cop side, though:

1) Unlicensed, brand new car looks really suspicious.
2) He drove for nearly 2 minutes without pulling over. -- pattern matching hard to dangerous stop.
3) He refuses to comply with direct instructions *despite having a gun pulled on him*
4) If he'd have just complied and let them get the situation under control, they would have realized their mistake about 30s after they got him into cuffs.

We have three people who very clearly did not want this to go down this way, but ended up in a shitty situation (that honestly could have gone a lot worse). How do the hell do we bridge that gap?

I mean, right or wrong, it's going to take a *lot* of convincing to get people to be ok with "sometimes you might accidentally scare the officers so they might point a gun at you, and if they do then obey every command immediately no matter what and trust everything will work out in the end." Like, that's a lot of fucking trust!

[jh9]

Are you being serious? I'm going to assume you are, so...

1. People don't comply with an actual officer standing at their window giving lawful commands...but you think they're going to somehow become cheerlfully complaint to a drone hovering at their window?

This is intended to prevent situations where regular people panic and escalate unwittingly. (And people do tend to panic when you point guns at them.) It's not some silver bullet that's going to make sovereign felon magically compliant. It gives you the option to better determine which category the driver falls in without putting yourself, your career or the driver at unnecessary risk.

You can safely inform the driver of their offense, do your interview, issue your citation and get the same visual information without either party accidentally escalating things into a story on the 10:00 news. If they're going to be obstinate you also give them a chance to remove their seatbelt, open the door, put their hands up or wherever you want them before getting out of your own car. If things still spiral out of control you have the video showing that you did everything possible to avoid escalation.

The point I'm driving it, regardless of whether or not some toy drone is the right mechanism, is that the "walk up to an unknown potentially dangerous situation" might be a 19th century solution to a problem that may have a 21st century option.

2. I'm also going to assume you've never conducted a traffic stop. Not all stops are for speeding, and the ones that are are also used as an opportunity to check for other violations/crimes. While interacting with the driver, an officer: looks into the vehicle for evidence of possible criminal activity (weapons, drugs, open containers, bank bags with cash falling out, bodies in the rear seat, etc.); looks for indicators of posssible impairment (odor, slurred speech, eyes, etc.); notices body language and mannerisms to indicate deception, etc.; et al.

Either do it via the drone's camera or, if everybody is so gunshy about the other guy opening fire, then maybe using traffic stops as your foot in the door for everything from a speeding ticket to a felony drug arrest is a process that needs to be revisited.

3. While operating a radio, MDT, etc....now the officer is also supposed to simulatneously fly a drone (without crashing it into the ground, violator/passing vehicles, or the violator themselves)?

Yes. Learning how to operate new technology is part of everyone's job regardless of the field they're in.

[blues]

The fact that I almost ended up rolling around on the ground with a Miami-Dade highway officer years ago while blue lighting it to a crime scene at oh dark thirty reinforces the fact that some cops are not particularly good at their job and forget to check their ego when they feel their patch has been invaded...(whether by fellow LEOs or private citizens).


I will withhold judgment on the current matter...but I will say that @GyroF-16 is one of the good guys around here, regardless of the black, white or gray of the event under discussion.

[jh9]

3) He refuses to comply with direct instructions *despite having a gun pulled on him*

Yeah, but I can see that cutting both ways. The expectation that pointing a gun at someone is going to make them more compliant just seems to ignore basic human biology.

What does anyone expect when you intentionally induce an adrenaline-fueled panic response? Someone behaving more rational or less?

[TGS]

What marginally-sane Black man would provoke a situation with armed cops, knowing full well that escalated encounters between Black men and cops can end with the one who wasn't a cop on a slab in the morgue?

Stephanie, I need to say that I absolutely despise how you're framing this.

Escalated encounters between any person and police can end up with either the cop or the subject in the morgue. Yet, people still purposely pull that stuff just to get their fame. I don't know if you knew this, but people of all races provoke situations with cops and attack cops all the time thinking it'll work out okay, regardless of the fact that people who do such have a tendency to lose and end up in jail, injured, or in an exceedingly small amount of cases.....dead.

Yet they still do it. You're amazed that anyone would think people would pick confrontations with cops, and I'm amazed that you're so detached from reality to be ignorant to how often people do it, even in situations where any rational person would assess it to be a losing proposition.

This isn't about race. Black men do not get shot more often than white men simply due to their race, this has been very well documented and the studies discussed on this forum; the rate at which a particular demographic gets shot is commensurate to the dominant demographic in a given area committing crime. I abhor that you're insinuating getting shot by cops is a situation unique to black men. You are perpetuating racism by keeping this myth alive.

[MickAK]

The expectation that pointing a gun at someone is going to make them more compliant just seems to ignore basic human biology.

Bullets are bad for human biology last time I checked.

[blues]

Stephanie, I need to say that I absolutely despise how you're framing this.

Escalated encounters between any person and police can end up with either the cop or the subject in the morgue. Yet, people still purposely pull that stuff just to get their fame. I don't know if you knew this, but people of all races provoke situations with cops and attack cops all the time thinking it'll work out okay, regardless of the fact that people who do such have a tendency to lose and end up in jail, injured, or in an exceedingly small amount of cases.....dead.

Yet they still do it. You're amazed that anyone would think people would pick confrontations with cops, and I'm amazed that you're so detached from reality to be ignorant to how often people do it, even in situations where any rational person would assess it to be a losing proposition.

This isn't about race. Black men do not get shot more often than white men simply due to their race, this has been very well documented and the studies discussed on this forum; the rate at which a particular demographic gets shot is commensurate to the dominant demographic in a given area committing crime. I abhor that you're insinuating getting shot by cops is a situation unique to black men. You are perpetuating racism by keeping this myth alive.

QFT. Period.

(No offense to Stephanie, but she's just on the wrong side of this...in my experience.)