[ Follow up post here: https://garveys-ghost.blogspot.com/2021/04/responding-to-officer-tatums-analysis.html ]
Those of us who are not on the ACAB (look it up) camp must be prepared to condemn out of control police whenever they are violating the rights of people. And as much as I've made a point to point out when "suspects" are responsible for the bad outcomes they end up in, I'm totally prepared to call out bad policing.
Over the weekend I heard about lieutenant Nazario's situation and watched the video. Complete assery on the part of the police and I hope the officers involved are personally bankrupted for their actions. If you are unfamiliar with the story you can find it here:
https://www.npr.org/2021/04/11/986271819/officer-who-handcuffed-and-pepper-sprayed-black-army-lieutenant-is-fired
I was wondering what had the officers in such a state of alarm. That they claimed there was a "traffic violation" as a pretense to get a suspect out of a vehicle IS something that happens. The reason being this: Say a suspect in a homicide is seen on the road. You pull him over BECAUSE he is a suspect in a homicide but you don't want him to know that because he may become aggressive and try to drive off or kill the officer. So what they do is make up a minor "incident" story that tricks the person into thinking that they are likely to "get away" with a warning or something. This increases the likelyhood that they will cooperate. Once out of the vehicle they are informed they are being arrested due to whatever.
So with that in mind I wanted to know why they had guns out. Then I read this:
In a report filed on the night of the incident, Gutierrez says they were treating it as a "high risk traffic stop" because Nazario's vehicle had no tag displayed, he took a long time to stop, and he had "extremely dark" window tint.
Been there and done that.
Many many years ago I was stopped on the NJ Turnpike while I had temporary plates on my vehicle. Two state troopers pulled me over for speeding (I was) while letting a blue Miata (driven by a white guy) in front of me (so was ALSO speeding and going faster than me) go. While one trooper had his gun on me the other wanted to search my vehicle. Again, for "speeding". Did I mention the average speed on that section of the turnpike was 80MPH? Yeah. OK. So there wasn't any probable cause or reasonable suspicion to conduct a search but whatever. The reason he gave? He didn't recognize the temporary plate.
Sure. Mr. Proffessional law enforcement doesn't recognize a temp tag.
Sure.
The second thing is that Nazario did not immediately pull over. I don't know the exact details but again, this is NOT a sign of a problem unless Nazario was maneuvering to evade the police.
Again, been there and done that.
In South Carolina I was stopped by a police officer. I'm going to guess speeding since it was one of those places where the speed limit drops dramatically because you're entering a town. In any case, it was dark and I had no intention of being pulled over in a spot with low visibility. So I put on my blinkers and kept going until I got to a lit, public location.
No guns drawn. Nothing but a warning and the hassle.
A person not immediately pulling over, particularly at night is not necessarily a risk. It is actually safer for ALL involved for the person to get to a lit location as Nazario did.
Nazario did nothing wrong. He is right that for a traffic violation there is absolutely no need or requirement to get out of his vehicle. The tint and perhaps the unseen tag was a civil offense at best. License, registration, insurance and have a nice day.
Lastly here's a note to you officers. Keep fucking around with the law abiding citizens. Keep enforcing clearly unconstitutional "orders" from governors and presidents and ANTIFA and sovereign citizen types will not be the only groups of people you're going to have to worry about.
