there, ftfy
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He’s very clever. Did you notice how he asked (as if to make friendly conversation) about how the car started? That was to trick the diver into handing him the keys. Because if you hand an officer your keys, you’ve just crossed a rights-threshold and granted non-verbal consent to have your car searched. This also likely means that he’s pulled that little trick on other unsuspecting and naive kids who merely want to do the right thing. He then of course attempts to coerce the young man into incriminating himself to justify the officer’s cause for the stop.
That is some racist, predatory shit. In the meantime, LEARN AND KNOW YOUR RIGHTS PEOPLE!
Update: It’s worth noting that not here but in the longer video (“BUSTED: The Citizen’s Guide to Surviving Police Encounters” locate-able on the youtubes) they demonstrate a ballsy technique involving being asked to step out, then locking your car as you do so (as if it’s a force of habit)! This of course makes it much tougher for a cop to slip in to your car by socially engineering his way in as shown (once they’re inside your car, they can proceed with searching every square inch). Such a move may not always be realistic of course with respect to the encounter’s intensity, not to mention having to be brave as shit, on your game, and courteous simultaneously. Worth a watch IMO.
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Ah but you see the cop starts out saying he’s nervous and heavily implies the whole time that if the victim doesn’t comply then he may kill the victim.
So it’s either “do what the cop says and live” or “assert my rights and be killed like a dog.” (police kill an inordinate number of family pets by the way. Usually while trespassing.)
I’m pretty sure telling this cop no only serves to make it more likely he’d be violent towards you. And he’s a “scared” guy with a gun. That seems like a losing proposition.
The law can’t protect you when a cop shoots you in the head and doesn’t call an ambulance and you die in a minute or two.
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It’s good that you woke up. What bothers me is that there are people who think those videos are the sum total of cases, so it’s not really a problem. Those “driving while black” jokes have apparently all just been jokes, and so forth. I’m often surprised that PoCs in the US aren’t significantly angrier about the situation.
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Yes, your thinking seems quite sound. Terrifying as things were, I think the kid might’ve left himself in a better position if he’d remained compliant but only verbally explained how the car started and kept his hands visible. The cop didn’t explicitly ask for the keys, and I of course don’t blame him for acting on his impulses under the fear of the encounter. However the kid new enough later on to refuse to help the officer cover up his crooked tactics. He was courteous and refused to comply b/c (it seems) he had just enough of an understanding of his rights and the consequences of giving them up. I fully respect and appreciate how much courage it requires to do that. I was so pleased to see that he did.
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Although the infiltration of police departments by overt white supremacists is an issue, in this case, I get this whole smug, “Aren’t I being reasonable here?” vibe from him. Which is made all the more offensive by the fact that, no, he’s not being at all reasonable, and that he’s further threatening to jail the guy for simply suggesting that maybe he’s not being totally fair and reasonable. He almost seems to get a bit mad, like his self-image is being threatened. Although maybe I’m completely wrong, and this is just another abuse strategy, i.e. “I’m going to mistreat you and get you to agree I’m being reasonable, just to rub it in and make you feel powerless and assert my own power.”
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… definitely that…
…and then there are likely those out there who do believe the warnings because they are the ones who create, sustain, and inspire inequality and brutality.
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They may murder you anyway, especially if you’re melanin-rich.
Still, the video gives solid advice and can largely be summed up by obey the pigs, verbally consent to nothing, wait to talk to a lawyer, and get your revenge in court.
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the very last line of this cop as he gets into his vehicle is he “is sure he is missing something”
…surely those guys must have something that makes them arrestable, they were black afterall, we just must have missed it somehow…grrrrr that part makes me livid. as does the part where he threatens the guy if he doesn’t agree that the stop was reasonable.
this is the worst kind of apple because it still looks very shiny and apply on the surface but is rotten through and through…
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Officer, “I fear for my life.”
Citizen, “So do I.”
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Visibly angry PoC get killed.
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The only actual solution is collective action. I look at the video posted above as (uncertain) survival techniques for an (unevenly distributed) fascist state.
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“I see shake on the ground.” WTF does that even mean? I think I am just going to start using made up words too in already tense situations.
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I presumed it meant, the cop wanted to imply, to his chest cam audience,that the blokes in the car “had scattered their stash out of the window”. This is yet another sickening story from the world. I feel my white-male privilege more and more. 
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“Shake” is American cop-slang for the bits of cannabis that weed smokers allegedly scatter on the floor of their cars. It’s mythological bullshit (ain’t none of my friends that wasteful with their weed…), but is routinely accepted by US courts as justification for a search.
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Duly noted… I knew they were supposed to ask. Was not aware of this little trick.
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My dad retired as a cop a few years ago. I’m certain that at least a couple of times a year he “feared for his life”. But he didn’t kill a single person in 30 years. He’s not without his biases and definitely has an authoritarian mindset. Still, no one died. Sure, ideally there would be no violent crime and no cops would have to fear for their lives ever, but thats the fucking job! One that every single cop ever signed up for fully knowing the risks. No one ever volunteered to be a targeted minority, yet they fear for their lies every minute of every day, at work and at home. This era of law enforcement is absolutely disgusting.
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That means the one time he smoked pot in college he had some shitty ditch weed full of seeds and stems.
