That’s sort of like, ‘what could I do, short of pretending to reach for a gun, to make the situation deteriorate as fast as possible?’
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I have to agree. The officer went for his safety first. His finger was not on the trigger. He waited for backup as he wasn’t able to resolve the situation with the two passengers alone. He stayed professional and calm while the passengers were getting more and more agitated. He probably could have put the gun back in his holster, but once he crossed that line, he probably preferred to resolve this with backup.
It sucks, but reaching under your seat can look suspicious.
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I don’t know about the US but in Europe many cars have a sliding pocket under the front passenger seat. It’s extremely convenient to hide stuff in dubious areas, and if a thief breaks the window, the door being deadlocked, it is very difficult to reach that pocket. All my cars have had one since about 1980 and it’s where I used to keep all essential documents when traveling outside the UK. Is this not so in the US?
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That’s an option. I think my approach to having a scared cop point a gun at me would be the same as my reaction to every other time I’ve been pulled over: be all “yes, sir / no,sir” and get it over with as quickly as possible.
it absolutely looks suspicious. My only criticism of the officer would be, he could have lowered the weapon slightly so it was not pointing towards the passenger. He still would have been in control and able to respond with force if needed (which it clearly and thankfully was not ultimately needed).
in reply to @Enkita My Subaru does not have one of those, though our Honda Odyssey did. About a month ago someone on BB mentioned in the EU how it is common to not leave car paperwork in your vehicles. That often times they are carried in a wallet or purse. This was the first time I’d ever heard of anyone doing so. Here in the states (at least everyone I know) commonly leaves that paperwork in the glove box or center seat rest storage. We hardly ever used that under the seat storage, as it was difficult to reach for the driver, and was so small it held nothing substantial for the passenger. Simply put reach under the seat during a traffic stop is not a smart choice, and claiming that your paperwork is under there (call me judgmental all you like) is just preposterous. If you have to fumble around in your car and reach under the seat to find your license and registration and insurance card, well…I can’t say I think anything good is coming your way. That is disorganized and irresponsible on many levels to me.
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That you think it’s reasonable to expect people to pre-plan for the possibility that they might be pulled over and have to be trained on how to deal with jumpy cops seems to indicate where the problem is. You’ve seem to have normalized the idea of pointing of a weapon at people who haven’t shown any actual threat. This shouldn’t be normal. All your “good advice” sounds like the advice you give to someone who encounters a bear in the woods, not a human being employed in a public service.
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That officer wasn’t jumpy at all. He did not pull his weapon until the passenger began to reach under the seat.
If you think my advice of keeping your car paperwork in an orderly easy to reach place is somehow me normalizing bad cops…well, we are clearly at an impasse. Now I have not been pulled over in at least 10 years, but I still ensure I keep my things organized.
It is absolutely reasonable to pre-plan for the event of being pulled over or having an accident. Those are common occurrences when driving a car. If you are someone who doesn’t feel getting stopped or having an accident are potential things you should have a simple plan and course of action for when driving a vehicle, then again…we are at an impasse.
Have a nice day.
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Never seen a car in the US with that. There are pockets on the top side of the sun visors for them, but I would say the most common place for registration and insurance papers is in the glove box. It would look very strange to me if I asked the driver for these papers and then the passenger goes straight for something under the seat. Shitty situation but I do feel the officer handled it properly.
Not seeing what lead to this, I can’t really say if his initial reactions were warranted. Reaching under the seat IS one of the actions they are trained to look out for. Aside from that, at least the cop was professional in his actions and demeanor. I can’t help but to think if more cops were like this there would be less abuse.
Race probably paid a factor, as did the hand tattoos as far as biases go.
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No, it isn’t perfectly reasonable to draw a gun and point it at another person for nearly ten minutes because they may have reached underneath their seat. Pretending that coming a hair’s breadth away from deadly force because someone put their hand in a place you don’t like just normalizes this kind of thing and rationalizes the conflict escalation bad officers engage in.
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Again, I can’t say how reasonable it was for the initial action, but once out, then yes it should be kept out until one can confirm there was nothing under the seat. Putting yourself in their position, would you reholster if you thought there was a good chance there was a weapon under the seat? So he waited for back up so they could confirm this. Reholstering until are 100% sure there is no danger doesn’t seem very prudent. He also had it in a rather relaxed position with finger on the side - not fully extended arms ready to shoot. In all honesty, I think what he did deescalated the event, not the other way around.
I’m the first to condemn when lines are crossed. But it is hard for me to completely condemn this action here.
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completely in the sense of it applying to LEOs.
It really does not apply to the other hand.
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We don’t have all the information to make that statement. It started routine yes, but we didn’t see what happened to prompt his reaction. Pulling weapons from under the seat is common enough that it is trained for. I may know someone who kept a sawed off shot gun under his back when he was running around in some bad circles.
If there was, in fact, a “good chance there was a weapon under the seat,” then he was a fool either not to not keep his weapon trained on the man, and/or not to order him out of the car.
And if you accept police officers pointing a gun at someone any time they are less than 100% sure that there is no weapon present, then you’ve effectively accepted police pointing a deadly weapon at someone in almost every single interaction.
You think that pointing a loaded gun at someone for ten minutes deescalated the routine traffic stop? Honestly?
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Again, if you think there is a good chance of weapon in the car, would you reholster? Why or why not?
The fact that no one got hurt shows it was not escalated.
“Watch: Inept cop holds man at gunpoint for 9 minutes during simple traffic stop”
It seems that these days there is no such thing as a “simple traffic stop” (at least for people of color).
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it deescalated because the officer on the scene did what procedure is…he waited for back up to arrive . Once the other officer was there, that cop then asked the individuals to step out of the car and once clear the main officer holstered his weapon and checked under the seat, confirming nothing was there. From that point he would have asked the driver of the vehicle to retrieve the paperwork, review it, and then issue the citations and send them on their way.
I am amazed on a daily basis of how extreme people’s viewpoints have become. I hear far right wing nuts crying how “a cop can do whatever they want, they are in charge, respect cops!!!” then left wing nuts cry “all cops are out of control and trying to kill us all…its a police state!!!”
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It’s just not that easy. Not all subjects declare their intent, and a calm citizen can turn violent in a flash. Police are shown actual body cam footage of cops that didn’t make it home at night because a perp was a half second faster than the cop.
So the argument then turns into a question of cops keeping themselves safe, vs keeping the innocent public safe.
Calling this cop inept is useless hyperbole, and also detracts from more meaningful conversation.
Empathy is the first step to unity: Shots Fired: Part 2
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About cars with storage bins under the passenger seat…
I own two: Dodge Grand Caravan and Toyota Sienna. Not particularly unusual vehicles.
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I have an American model Golf TDI (my second, but both of the same gen), and there is no such sliding pocket under the passenger seat. My American model 1998 Jetta also did not have one, as I recall. Nor any other VW I can recall test driving, or being a passenger in. I think it’s a Europe thing.
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