Don’t bring the sass, if you can’t handle the afrass.
(Does this work? I’m trying to make it a ‘thing’.)
SHE SHOULD NOT HAVE DRIVEN OFF.
Granted.
But driving off doesn’t mean she needs to get arrested, or dragged out of her vehicle, or thrown on the ground, or tased. Every one of those actions by the cop could have been a point of de-escalation instead.
Really? I suppose he should have just let her go. Especially after physically struggling? Should the cops NEVER arrest anyone? Ever? For any reason? Are citizens NEVER in the wrong? Ever?
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I don’t want to make excuses for the police but if they let everyone go who just wanted to not bother with them, they might as well not be out there. In this one case, if the cop let her drive off, it’s setting up a bad situation if the next night she got pulled over for drunk driving and tried it again with misplaced confidence.
Also, who’s to say her super-belligerence wasn’t a basic red flag that she might have been impaired right then? If she drove off and hit another car two blocks down, how culpable would everyone have found the officer who ignored her peeling off?
De-escalating is finding ways to non-violently talk someone into giving up control of a potential weapon or vehicle, not to wave at them as they drive away with one over the horizon.
(If you don’t think of a car as a potential weapon, look up the number of traffic cops that get killed by them by escaping motorists, and you’ll see why “turn off your car and get out of the car” is standard and first and non-negotiable. A truck’s the same size no matter the size of the driver.)
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Did you and the rest of us watch the same video? The whole damn thing was a point of deescalation.
- Cop offers her a warning
** Old lady somehow (unclear) talks herself out of a warning and into a ticket. - Cop gives her a ticket, which she can fight in court, and will almost certainly win if she shows that she got her light replaced
** Old lady somehow decides to not even sign the damn ticket, which is as pointless an action as any considering that it’s not an admission of guilt but am acknowledgment that she’s received the ticket. - Cop is doing his best Andy Griffith impression the whole time
** Old lady decides to run from the cop, escalating this from an $80 ticket (that can probably be taken care of for $15) to a misdemeanor - Cop tries to arrest her for misdemeanor, never breaking his Andy Griffith character
** Old lady kicks cop in the upper thigh (and admits it later) thus adding a felony to the misdemeanor charge she was already facing - Cop tases old lady
There is only one person doing the escalation, and it ain’t the cop. It escalated from $15 in parts to an $80 ticket to a misdemeanor to a felony, and that was not the cop’s doing. It’s hard to believe anyone can escalate something that much, yet here we are.
Anyone wanna bet that she’s a member of the “party of personal responsibility”, and also thinks that Michael Brown wouldn’t have gotten shot had he just stayed out of the street?
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The way you put it, it sounds like you are blaming her for not being afraid for her life when dealing with police. As completely fucked up as it is that non white people have to fear for their lives in a situation like this, no one should be blamed for not being afraid. Blamed for acting like an entitled asshole, yes.
And yes, fucking DUH, I am aware I am stating pretty obvious things, but I guess we live in a world were obvious things need stating.
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Especially after so many examples of people groveling who got shot anyway.
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Yup, yup, yup. She was definitely escalating. She was definitely in the wrong. She was definitely making her own situation worse. But the cop could have still de-escalated. Like, I don’t understand why this is controversial? Everyone is better off if this encounter does not result in a felony conviction. She’s obviously better off, he avoids a more dangerous situation for himself, the taxpayers don’t have to pay for incarceration, the courts don’t have to spend time litigating the case, etc.
Calmly explaining the escalation steps he would take in response to her non-compliance, and giving her space to weigh her options would have likely resulted in her accepting the ticket and leaving, however unhappy, knowing that the correct place to contest the ticket is in court. But instead, this guy requires immediate compliance and anything short of that is met with physical attack. Why did he never tell her that if she failed to sign the ticket, he would arrest her? Instead, she refuses and he immediately tells her she’s under arrest. It seems entirely reasonable to me that a person can refuse to sign a ticket without facing imprisonment. If she had been disabused of that notion, she would have likely begrudgingly signed it.
It’s amazing to me that y’all don’t feel the chafing of the cops actions as viscerally as I do. You seem to welcome, and even champion, the violation of this woman’s body. Because she deserves it?
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Unquestionably my lawyer was terrible, since I was pro se. 
That was indeed the precise case I was trying to make - because it was true. I was driving home so as not to have to replace the light in a parking lot out in the weather. The receipt was timestamped maybe a half hour before the traffic stop. (The parts place was at a mall, and I spent a few minutes afoot picking up a few groceries on the same trip.) Her Honor was of the opinion that I shouldn’t have driven that car to the parts place, either. She basically told me that the only way to beat that rap would be to park the car immediately upon discovering the problem and not drive it again until it was fixed. Otherwise, I was knowingly operating a vehicle in an unsafe condition.
(Or rather, in her court, traffic citiations are unbeatable. I think she might have an informal financial quota to fill with the city.)
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Yes, that’s what I literally said. That nobody should ever be arrest. Ever. For any reason. Great analysis.
Drivers with anger issues and zero-impulse control should be taken off the road before they kill some innocent that crosses their path. It’s a basic safety issue. The woman is not the only person in the world, when she’s behind the wheel of her car.
Shouting down a cop doesn’t mean someone should be hurt, but they need to get out of that car.
If she isn’t responding to a cop at their politest, why should that cop have judged her a safe driver to continue on her way?
“Anything short of that” is telling a cop you’re not under arrest and driving away? There was no “physical attack” until she’d bolted and refused to stop operating her “machine commonly understood to be able to kill people”.
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I’m “blaming” her for assuming that she can break the law with impunity and get away with it. She’s not dead. She did not get shot. she’s alive and has been arrested for assaulting police FOR MAKING HER SIGN A FUCKING TRAFFIC TICKET.
Which is the entire definition of white privilege. People acting like entitled assholes because of the color of their skin. There. That’s America for ya.
Well, I am a woman, so talk slowly, please…
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I don’t know what to tell you. the woman would not sign the ticket and drove off. I’m not sure what you think the cop should do in that situation? Just let her go, because she looks like a sweet old lady so it’s fine for her to break the law? She broke the law.
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Why is it so important that she sign the thing? Why is it acceptable to arrest someone (i.e., deprive them of liberty) because they refuse to sign a piece of paper? Is her signature needed in any way whatsoever for her to be held accountable for the burnt out tail light?
So yeah, I think the cop should just let her go. Because it literally does not matter if she signs it or not. She was notified that she was being issued a citation. The cop has no more business with her. Let her leave.
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asking “is my tail light out i’m sorry i’ll head right over to the garage i didn’t know” was my goto to avoid speeding tickets when i lived in a state without radar.
but you did say
you’re signing a promise to go to court, not an admission of guilt. if you break that promise a warrant is filed. if someone expresses they don’t want to admit to guilt the cop will explain it’s not one, and most cops will even say up front i need you to sign this it is not an admission of guilt
if you won’t promise to go to court, a very basic ask, you can be arrested and taken to the court right there.
it’s an extremely reasonable ask that is designed for the reasons you hint at: because it’s not useful to arrest people for minor traffic violations.
otoh if you won’t promise to go to court and handle the matter at a later date then yes… you’re forcing the cops hand because in a society where there’s laws you can’t just say “nope, i opt out” and drive off, or we’d have very dangerous roads. people die when things happen like someone shifts lanes w/o a signal because it’s broken
it’s childish and disengenous to say “all i did was drive away” and paint the cops as violent thugs. there are many, many steps between her being tazed and being pulled over. i am extremely critical of police violence, but it’s valid to stop her. she wouldn’t have been tazed if she had simply lied still and passively resisted. she got violent so she had proportional force used.
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Oh, now melz, white people are the real victims!
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I mean, they’ve been held to a different standard for much of American history… we can’t change that now, it’d be unfair!!! /s
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