Originally Posted by
Trooper224
I just watched the available video. I really didn't want to, but I've read enough bullshit in this thread that I felt the need to comment.
Let's look at two aspects here: legalities and personal behavior.
Legalities:
Registration: the stop pretext was no registration or improper display of same, both of which are violations and valid reasons for a traffic stop. The reg wasn't displayed in the right place. The typical statute for this will read as, "registration must be displayed upon the vehicle in the place designed for it" or some similar verbiage. This makes the display of the temporary tag illegal. Is it commonly done? Of course. In fact, it's routine. Temp reg. can be damaged by weather or stolen, so this is common. However, commonality does not excuse a violation. From a moving vehicle, at night, you wouldn't have been able to see it, or tell what it was. I saw this many, many times and I stopped vehicles for it many times. Fortunately none of those incidents ever rose to this level of community clusterfuck.
Failure to stop on command: some how, somewhere, people have formed the opinion that compliance is optional. This is not the case. When you see the flashy flashy lights in your rearview you pull over. You don't get to refuse legal commands unless you feel good about it. People have heard, "If you don't like it, proceed to a well lit area where you're more comfortable." Sports fans, this is encounter group wisdom, not legal precedent. The democratic process is not in play on the side of the road. Ultimately, you comply or you get complied, that's the way it is. Now, that being said, I believe the statement was, the Lt. went for a mile before stopping. A mile in a vehicle in motion isn't that far. I had countless vehicles fail to immediately stop for all sorts of reasons over the years. From semi-drivers who had the stereo blaring and weren't paying attention, to someone having a medical emergency, not to mention the usual drunks and thugs. That the Lt. stopped in a well lit and public area should have been an indicator of possible intent and the threat level should have been judged accordingly. One of the biggest issues I see with current LE practice is the propensity for officers to go from 0 to 100 as their defualt response to nearly everything. To be a real cop you've got to have some iron in your soul and some ice in your viens. I don't see much of that anymore.
Felony Stop: the term is a descriptor not a definition. The technique can be called a felony stop, hot stop, high risk stop, etc. A felony offense doesn't have to be present for this technique to be utilized. Any time an officer has reason to believe the situation may rise above the level of a standard, or "routine" incident to use a lousy term, the procedure can be and should be used. This is a terrible example of a felony stop, but we'll get to that later. I used to teach this subject matter and performed it almost on a nightly level in the latter stages of my career, so I'm more than a little familiar with the process.
Personal behavior:
There are no innocent parties here, only varying degrees of douche bag.
The young Lt. was not in fear for his life. If you believe that you really need to pull your head out of whatever alternate reality it's stuck up. I've dealt with enough people who are genuinely in fear for their lives and shared that feeling enough that I know what it looks like, this wasn't it. He decided to get his "Man of color" 'tude on, pure and simple. He wasn't being belligerent or hostile, he simply wasn't complying. He saw this as an opportunity to get his fifteen minutes of civil disobedience cred and seized upon it for all it was worth. Even when he was at gunpoint, point blank, he wasn't in fear. He knew the cops didn't have grounds to shoot him and weren't likely to do so. Again, I've seen this countless times over decades of experience. All he had to do was comply. He could have filed a formal complaint in the aftermath, or even file a law suite from that alone if he felt the need. But, he simply made the wrong decision and got jammed up for it. Objectively, everything he got he deserved. He also played the military card, which makes him an A+ asshole as far as I'm concerned. The young man has a big chip on his shoulder and I hope his command knocks it off for him. I wouldn't be surprised to find he has incidents of disrespect towards authority in his service jacket.
Just so I can show I'm objective, let's pile on the cops and in this case it's quite easy to do, because this was real Keystone Cops shit right here.
Okay, you find a vehicle that doesn't seem to have proper registration displayed. Okay, reason enough for a stop so we haven't gone sideways yet. You light the vehicle up, but it doesn't stop immediately. Okay, lots of reasons for that, some dramatic some not, but it should get you on point. Considering the offense, the distance traveled and where the vehicles came to rest I don't see anything here that rises to the level of a felony stop. It's a judgment call, but that's not the decision I would have made. I don't know what their department policy is on such things, but given the totality of the circumstances I just don't see this as a guns out incident at that point. You have to be willing to accept a certain amount of personal risk when you put on a badge. As Captain Kirk said, "Risk is our business." At this point I don't see anything that rises to the level of high risk, nothing that would warrant a felony stop. Now we reach the point where we just go completely off the rails. If this is your idea of a felony stop you're an absolute moron. Your department either needs to rewrite its policy if this is SOP, or it needs to send you back to school. The officers think this is risky enough for a felony stop so they do one, then completely fall apart when they don't get immediate and complete compliance. The young guy, let's call him "Officer Serving Since Tuesday" doesn't seem to really know what's going on. I don't know if he's new or still in training, but he just seems to be going along with the older guy we'll call "Officer Pornstache" (Leroy Jenkins was already taken). Pornstache decides "let's get it on" with a felony stop. Okay, you decide the risk warrants it, but when the violator isn't impressed by your massive upper lip coiffure and he doesn't comply, your answer is to just walk right up on the vehicle? Right. I can see that in court. "Officer Pornstache, you thought there was an element of risk so you performed a felony stop?" "Yes sir, for reasons of officer safety." "Then explain to us why it was risky enough for a felony stop, but then you proceeded to disregard your own safety and directly approach the vehicle." "Ugh....... reasons?"
At this point the LT. has both hands out of the window, yet Pornstache thinks it's necessary to just about shove his gun in the Lt's face. Tuesday seems to be in the mode of, "Pornstache has his gun out so I better too, or the guys'll think I'm a pussy." It damn near looks like he's flagging Pornstache at some angles. At this point it's obvious that physical force is going to be necessary. The Lt. just isn't playing so he's not coming out of the vehicle on his own. Using OC spray at this point is fine and probably within department policy. Personally, I've physically yanked more than one individual out of the window without resorting to OC or anything else. But neither Pornstache or Tuesday seem physically capable of that. Once he's out of the vehicle I see no legitimate control techniques. Stop yelling at him to get on the ground and damn well put him on the ground. Pornstache seems to be counting on guns and screaming to achieve an harmonious outcome. When that doesn't happen he doesn't seem to have a Plan B and looks like anything but a professional. Overall he just looks like a bully with a badge and Tuesday just seems kind of clueless. They may both be decent guys, but they portray themselves in the worst possible light, short of shooting the Lt. Tuesdays behavior may be defended by reasons of inexperience, but I see no legitimate defense for Pornstaches behavior. After all this bother and drama they choose not to arrest the Lt. This is perhaps one of their worst mistakes. I suspect that after they realize how this is going to go, they're attempting damage control by looking like something other than incompetent assholes, but that's the wrong play at that point. The pretext for the stop is presumably an infraction, but the resistance and obstruction are arrestable offenses. In the optics of a courtroom that will look like they know they screwed up and they're just trying to do damage control. I've seen this same decision making process occur out on the road and making an arrest is always preferable.
Summary:
No one is blameless in this incident. Everyone was an asshole, by virtue of their behavior or cluelessness. The Lieutenant may receive judicial punishment from his command and he should. He did everything but represent the service in the best possible light. Pornstache needs to be exiled into former copland. The man doesn't have the temperament for LE work. At the least Tuesday needs some retraining and a better FTO than Pornstache and he better walk on eggshells for the rest of his career. If he keeps his job, he just used his one get out of jail free card. Sometimes it's not a tragedy or an injustice, it's just a mass conflagration of assholes. That's just what this was.
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