Video & Multimedia
Related: About this forumPapantonio: Legal Analysis - What Are Your Rights During A Traffic Stop?
Video surfaced last week that showed what happened at a traffic stop between a state trooper and Sandra Bland. Bland was found dead from an apparent suicide in her holding cell a few days after the incident seen on the film, and had just a few things gone differently in that video, she might still be alive.
Mike Papantonio discusses this with attorney Howard Nations.
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)I am glad there was mention by the legal expert that GUNS, 320 million of them in civilian hands, guns and more guns everywhere, is a grave lethal threat to patrolling police as well as civilians everywhere, everyday.
Melt down the civilian millions and millions of guns and then incrementally disarm the cops, is an idea.
Gun control by elimination of the guns goes hand in hand with obtaining Justice for police violence and abating the carnage and fear everywhere - all roads lead to The Gun.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)Indydem
(2,642 posts)Can they order you out of the car? Yes.
Papantonio: An officer has the right to say take off your hat, take off your sunglasses, put down your phone, put out the cigarette, turn the radio down he has a right to do that until the point that the investigation is over, hes handed the ticket, at that point, its over. Nations: Absolutely
He had not handed Bland her warning. The investigation was still in effect.
Rodriguez does NOT APPLY because he never handed Bland the warning. That small detail is all that matters.
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)But who is usually watching when they do or do not abide the constitution and legal precedent?
One other point Nations missed.
There never was an investigation to begin with, there was bad faith and malicious intent by the cop to begin with, so that does not meet the definition of an "investigation".
As I awkwardly explain here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027001748
Indydem
(2,642 posts)Go ahead, link me to your "Three Uppity's" post again. I'm getting used to you being unable to actually make rational arguments.
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)P.S. I have no idea who you are and do I not care.
Indydem
(2,642 posts)The ridiculous, criminal, and outright bullshit that happened immediately AFTER that, was illegal and I hope that fucker gets the needle.
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)@1:05
https://m.
Dont call me Shirley
(10,998 posts)Indydem
(2,642 posts)When he starts quoting your made up fictional narrative that has no basis but your own bias against police officers.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)He told her he would give her a warning and then did not do it.
If you watch the video, she was driving in the left-hand lane. (Personally, I would avoid that in the first place.0 As she was driving, presumably when she saw him behind her, she turned just slightly and very quickly to the right, kind of a jerk as if she was thinking about changing lanes. My theory, just a theory, is that made him suspicious because he thought she might be trying to get out of his way. Actually, she might have been lighting a cigarette or tuning her radio. But she shifted slightly to the right.
At that point, he sped up and followed her moving closer and closer. She may have thought he was going to run her off the road. In my theory, she panicked and moved to the right lane where she would have been all along had she been smart.
He wanted an excuse to search the car is my theory. He may have expected drugs because she seemed to want to avoid him before she made the lane change. Took him a long time to sit in his car. He made her wait maybe 3-5 minutes. Maybe his computer is that slow? Or maybe he was trying to make her angry.
He was trying to pick a fight and she fell for it. She should not have fallen for it. But he did tell her that he was warning her. She was easily angered. A little silent sense of humor about this stupid cop would have served her well. On the other hand, he might have picked a fight no matter what she did.
She was clearly no danger to him. By the time he so rudely and roughly pulled her out of the car, he surely knew that he was in no danger from her. I'm glad we have the tape even though it was clearly tampered with.
The law can be elastic. With all the deaths in custody recently and with a movement beginning that is dealing with the use of excessive force by police officers especially against African-Americans, maybe we will get a more rational interpretation of the Fourth Amendment law in the not too distant future.
Maybe a swords to ploughshares voluntary movement encouraging people to get rid of guns and not carry them in the front of the car would help more than the efforts to change the laws on guns. Maybe bringing up the religious imperative to seek peace not confrontation would move some people away from the NRA Bible and to something more positive.
I'm just hopeful that we as a people will wise up.
But I think our standards for police behavior are too low. Police might be shot less often if the suspects they arrest thought the police could believe that the police wouldn't just love to shoot first and take a body to the morgue rather than have to testify in yet another trial. On edit, I am probably overly optimistic on that. There are really angry, dangerous people out there.
Other countries have crime. And guns. The Glock is manufactured in Austria I believe. And that country does not have nearly the crime we do. Maybe not as much as we do. But they certainly don't have the deadly violence on the part of both the police and suspects that we do. We can surely do this better. We have to. Our children's llves are at stake. And prisons destroy lives, kill hope and cost taxpayers a lot of money.
Still best advice is to obey the officer. But that officer made an idiot of himself on that video. Just an idiot. He looked so full of himself. Nurses in hospitals have to take far more talk-back than he got. Good heavens! That police officer is not suited for his job. He needs to look for another one.
Freelancer
(2,107 posts)and audio recorders, so the cops can't just take somebody out of range of their dash cams, or put their hands over their body cameras, and assume they can do whatever s#!% the want without it being recorded.
tclambert
(11,087 posts)But you should not threaten to sue, 'cause cops don't like that. Meanwhile, if the cop asks you to step out of the car, hop on one foot, spin around like a ballerina, and turn a cartwheel, well, those are "lawful commands." He can claim he was just doing a field sobriety test. He has quite a lot of latitude to mess with you. Refuse to comply and he can charge you for "resisting." Whether any of it is legal or illegal is up to the court later on. At the moment, unless you happen to have your attorney sitting next to you, you have the right to say, "Yes, officer. How high do you want me to jump, officer?"
But remember to save the request to file charges with Internal Affairs or to sue the department until later. A crafty cop can find ways to make you look guilty of something in order to undermine your credibility.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Threatening to sue is maybe one of the worst things an unarmed person can do.
passiveporcupine
(8,175 posts)Maybe it could be posted in the AA group too, since they are most at risk of overly excitable cop reactions.
We all need to know what is required of us when pulled over by a cop.
One thing I think Pap should not have done is imply that Sandra was not suicidal. I think she was, based on her history and the fact that she was so beligerant when pulled over and then crying non-stop in the cell and complaining to another prisoner that "she should never have been arrested...she did not deserve to be arrested".
I think she was so distraught and freaked out that she hung herself, and I have mentioned this in several threads here. I can understand her feeling this way, because it's probably how I would react if I was jailed, knowing the kind of person I am...that I am not a voluntary law breaker...it would totally screw with my head. And the 5K bail was absurd and probably meant she might lose her job because she couldn't pay bail and couldn't get to her new job in time. And as someone else mentioned, she might have lost the job anyway, just for being arrested.
But we all need to know what is required of us when pulled over by a cop so we don't accidentally escalate a situation that the cop will continue to escalate.
One more thing,. They are saying that once the ticket is handed to the driver, the driver is free to go. I don't think she was handed her warning yet. I think he let her sign it, and then was going to hand her her copy, but never did, because instead he asked if she was alright and then asked her to put out her cigarette. I'm just basing this on what I see in the video. I could be wrong. But that detail of knowing the ticket is in your hand and you are free to go, is an important detail for people to know.