White cops harass and pepper spray Black Army Lieutenant in Windsor, VA

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As is so often the case with these videos we don't know the full context. What we see in the video is a felony stop where the police officers are approaching the suspect with guns drawn and order the suspect to exit the vehicle. This is not the default approach to a routine traffic stop, which tells us something has transpired before the arrival of the officer wearing the body cam that we have video of.

The suspect is non-compliant and argues at length with the officers that he doesn't have to follow their directives, refuses to leave his vehicle, tells the police to "keep their hands off me," resists arrest, etc.

That the suspect is in the military and in uniform has nothing to do with anything.

Being in uniform doesn't change a thing when you are interacting with the police. Tons of service members get arrested off base for all manner of things in uniform and out. (and yes, largely for traffic violations, drunk driving, etc)

Characterizing this as "white cops harass and pepper spray black Army lieutenant," is characteristic of just how screwed up our society is on race relations right now.

Why insert race into this? Are white cops allowed to enforce the law? Are black army lieutenants obligated to follow the law and obey lawful directives when interacting with the police?

What if the police are -gasp- white, does a black army lieutenant still need to obey their commands at a traffic stop?

There is no evidence that race played a role in this interaction evident in the video.

Finally, he was not "attacked." He refused to comply with the police at length during a traffic stop. He was eventually pepper sprayed, which seemed to prompt him to at least get out of the car, after which point he refused to cooperate further and resisted arrest, before finally being taken into custody. The one officer should be counseled on his language, but this is hardly a case of police brutality.

All the suspect had to do was get out of the car and cooperate.

Your assumption that something transpired is...an assumption. You don’t know that something transpired beforehand. SMH

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Poor guy is afraid to move.

Really? He is too afraid to obey the police? Why do I suspect the Army might be the wrong career for him?

All he had to do was obey their directions and there would have been ample time to discuss whatever they had pulled him over for.

When you get pulled over you don't get to dictate to the police whether you will or won't obey their commands. Courts have ruled over and over and over again that the police are legally allowed to order you to get out of the vehicle at their discretion. This is to protect the safety of the police, for whom traffic stops can be very dangerous.

The police don't know who they are interacting with, what that person's state of mind is, whether they are armed, etc.

Wow. You are clueless about what happens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As is so often the case with these videos we don't know the full context. What we see in the video is a felony stop where the police officers are approaching the suspect with guns drawn and order the suspect to exit the vehicle. This is not the default approach to a routine traffic stop, which tells us something has transpired before the arrival of the officer wearing the body cam that we have video of.

The suspect is non-compliant and argues at length with the officers that he doesn't have to follow their directives, refuses to leave his vehicle, tells the police to "keep their hands off me," resists arrest, etc.

That the suspect is in the military and in uniform has nothing to do with anything.

Being in uniform doesn't change a thing when you are interacting with the police. Tons of service members get arrested off base for all manner of things in uniform and out. (and yes, largely for traffic violations, drunk driving, etc)

Characterizing this as "white cops harass and pepper spray black Army lieutenant," is characteristic of just how screwed up our society is on race relations right now.

Why insert race into this? Are white cops allowed to enforce the law? Are black army lieutenants obligated to follow the law and obey lawful directives when interacting with the police?

What if the police are -gasp- white, does a black army lieutenant still need to obey their commands at a traffic stop?

There is no evidence that race played a role in this interaction evident in the video.

Finally, he was not "attacked." He refused to comply with the police at length during a traffic stop. He was eventually pepper sprayed, which seemed to prompt him to at least get out of the car, after which point he refused to cooperate further and resisted arrest, before finally being taken into custody. The one officer should be counseled on his language, but this is hardly a case of police brutality.

All the suspect had to do was get out of the car and cooperate.

Your assumption that something transpired is...an assumption. You don’t know that something transpired beforehand. SMH

"Something must have transpired to make the cop mad because cops are heroes."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you just watch the video it looks like he's just disobeying. You can't hear what he's saying.

Read the article and it sounds like he was behaving reasonably given the situation, and that the cops are idiots.

I didn’t think he was disobeying. I think the police asked him to take his seatbelt off so they would have a “reason” to shoot him for not having his hands out the window.

How do you keep your hands visible while taking a seatbelt off?

I hope the military officer wins millions from the stupid and ignorant police department and that their city goes bankrupt.

The senior cop is an idiot who completely mishandled the situation but this is absurd.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Poor guy is afraid to move.

Really? He is too afraid to obey the police? Why do I suspect the Army might be the wrong career for him?

All he had to do was obey their directions and there would have been ample time to discuss whatever they had pulled him over for.

When you get pulled over you don't get to dictate to the police whether you will or won't obey their commands. Courts have ruled over and over and over again that the police are legally allowed to order you to get out of the vehicle at their discretion. This is to protect the safety of the police, for whom traffic stops can be very dangerous.

The police don't know who they are interacting with, what that person's state of mind is, whether they are armed, etc.

Wow. You are clueless about what happens.

Let's analyze and I have some experience with this: They had reason to stop him. They had reason to be concerned as they approached. So the threat level is raised and they have greater options of what they can do. But they saw the paper tag before all of this started going down hill. That took away some but not all of the seriousness of this. No doubt they need to check this out and be safe. But seeing a paper tag should have taken this down a notch. Seeing the guy in uniform makes a difference. To the people who say it does not: Police have to make assessments quickly based on things they are trained on and based on their own experience. Why would a guy in gang colors get treated differently than a guy in a suit? Because most of the time the threat is less. You do not drop your guard or give up the superior position. But a guy in an army uniform, and almost any cop can tell a real uniform from stuff from a surplus store, --- should take it back a notch, not to zero but back. They had two officers there. They have control. They should have assessed that what they may have thought to be something like a stolen car may not be --- tag and a guy in uniform -- may be something else. Now the guy appears to not be cooperating but he is calm, not aggressive. In 2021 I can't say as I blame him and people driving to well lit areas is common enough now that you have to assess. He is not cooperating but his demeanor is at least neutral in terms of the threat level in 2021 the cops need to pause. At this point the cops had control. No reason to pepper spray. There is no department where it is policy to use a chemical agent on a guy sitting in a car with a seatbelt on. What should have been done is calm things. Wait him out. Reason with him. Have the patrol supervisor come out. When that guy sees a supervisor, he will come right out. Instead they then make it worse and say crazy stuff.

They are not doing a great job prior to the pepper spray. But the point where it goes off the rails is when they deploy the agent. Now they are out of bounds. They then force him out of the car in a fairly rough manner. Why? He was pepper sprayed. Force used is too high at that point.

This could have gone fine but it did not. One last point: why wasn't he charged with anything? only one reason IMO: the patrol supervisor came and saw the mess the old guy caused: guy pulled over for no plate and tinted windows -- but there is a plate and the windows are an okay tint (I say that because they look ok in the video but I will tell you that you cannot tell at night in the dark so that is just a BS reason). Instead of a typical perp with a gun and drugs (which is what the expected to find), the have an Army LT -- who happens to be black. Pepper spray not deployed to policy and they roughed the guy up. Some supervisors would take these cops to task but most would just let the LT go and yell at these two fools and hope this goes away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you just watch the video it looks like he's just disobeying. You can't hear what he's saying.

Read the article and it sounds like he was behaving reasonably given the situation, and that the cops are idiots.

I didn’t think he was disobeying. I think the police asked him to take his seatbelt off so they would have a “reason” to shoot him for not having his hands out the window.

How do you keep your hands visible while taking a seatbelt off?

I hope the military officer wins millions from the stupid and ignorant police department and that their city goes bankrupt.

The senior cop is an idiot who completely mishandled the situation but this is absurd.

Agree. They just wanted him out of the car and did just about everything wrong.

[Anonymous]

It’s interesting to me that DCUM was all “OMG, those Trumpers are KILLING our police with fire extinguishers” just 95 days ago, bleating about how we have to do more to support our police against Trump protesters.... and now DCUM is right back to “ACAB! F’-Twelve!”


I guess there’s no ethics like situational ethics, eh?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s interesting to me that DCUM was all “OMG, those Trumpers are KILLING our police with fire extinguishers” just 95 days ago, bleating about how we have to do more to support our police against Trump protesters.... and now DCUM is right back to “ACAB! F’-Twelve!”


I guess there’s no ethics like situational ethics, eh?

There are no situational ethics. There are different situations.

1) The storming of Congress by trumpsters was an insurrection where several people including cops were killed because of the violence of trump-loving criminals.

2) The situation here is because we have cops who have no business carrying a badge based of their idiotic and likely racist judgment.

But I'm sure the truth doesn't fit the narrative you want to spin.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Poor guy is afraid to move.

Really? He is too afraid to obey the police? Why do I suspect the Army might be the wrong career for him?

All he had to do was obey their directions and there would have been ample time to discuss whatever they had pulled him over for.

When you get pulled over you don't get to dictate to the police whether you will or won't obey their commands. Courts have ruled over and over and over again that the police are legally allowed to order you to get out of the vehicle at their discretion. This is to protect the safety of the police, for whom traffic stops can be very dangerous.

The police don't know who they are interacting with, what that person's state of mind is, whether they are armed, etc.

Wow. You are clueless about what happens.

Let's analyze and I have some experience with this: They had reason to stop him. They had reason to be concerned as they approached. So the threat level is raised and they have greater options of what they can do. But they saw the paper tag before all of this started going down hill. That took away some but not all of the seriousness of this. No doubt they need to check this out and be safe. But seeing a paper tag should have taken this down a notch. Seeing the guy in uniform makes a difference. To the people who say it does not: Police have to make assessments quickly based on things they are trained on and based on their own experience. Why would a guy in gang colors get treated differently than a guy in a suit? Because most of the time the threat is less. You do not drop your guard or give up the superior position. But a guy in an army uniform, and almost any cop can tell a real uniform from stuff from a surplus store, --- should take it back a notch, not to zero but back. They had two officers there. They have control. They should have assessed that what they may have thought to be something like a stolen car may not be --- tag and a guy in uniform -- may be something else. Now the guy appears to not be cooperating but he is calm, not aggressive. In 2021 I can't say as I blame him and people driving to well lit areas is common enough now that you have to assess. He is not cooperating but his demeanor is at least neutral in terms of the threat level in 2021 the cops need to pause. At this point the cops had control. No reason to pepper spray. There is no department where it is policy to use a chemical agent on a guy sitting in a car with a seatbelt on. What should have been done is calm things. Wait him out. Reason with him. Have the patrol supervisor come out. When that guy sees a supervisor, he will come right out. Instead they then make it worse and say crazy stuff.

They are not doing a great job prior to the pepper spray. But the point where it goes off the rails is when they deploy the agent. Now they are out of bounds. They then force him out of the car in a fairly rough manner. Why? He was pepper sprayed. Force used is too high at that point.

This could have gone fine but it did not. One last point: why wasn't he charged with anything? only one reason IMO: the patrol supervisor came and saw the mess the old guy caused: guy pulled over for no plate and tinted windows -- but there is a plate and the windows are an okay tint (I say that because they look ok in the video but I will tell you that you cannot tell at night in the dark so that is just a BS reason). Instead of a typical perp with a gun and drugs (which is what the expected to find), the have an Army LT -- who happens to be black. Pepper spray not deployed to policy and they roughed the guy up. Some supervisors would take these cops to task but most would just let the LT go and yell at these two fools and hope this goes away.

I don't know why the first officer decided to do a felony stop? Maybe it was justified, maybe not.

This guy is a total fool for not complying with the instructions and he deserves what he got. You don't know what the cop knows. A bank could have been robbed by someone matching your description.

As far as pepper spray goes, police are allowed to use one level of force higher than the suspect. This guy was actively resisting the officers. But dept. policy will dictate, and nobody here knows their policy.

And the senior cop was pretty crappy overall, while the younger one seemed to be doing a better job.

Lastly, one officer could have re-holstered his Glock and put some cuffs on the guy while his hand were through the window.

[Anonymous]

I like the idea about cuffing the guy while his hands were through the window, but how did they know that there was no one hiding in the back seat ready to ambush them? The word of the non-cooperative driver?

The lieutenant needed to cooperate. I am a white parent and I teach my children this. Resisting commands gets a person nowhere. The police were not open to having a conversation until the driver showed some basic obedience to commans.

[Anonymous]

commands

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I like the idea about cuffing the guy while his hands were through the window, but how did they know that there was no one hiding in the back seat ready to ambush them? The word of the non-cooperative driver?

The lieutenant needed to cooperate. I am a white parent and I teach my children this. Resisting commands gets a person nowhere. The police were not open to having a conversation until the driver showed some basic obedience to commans.

Say no more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s interesting to me that DCUM was all “OMG, those Trumpers are KILLING our police with fire extinguishers” just 95 days ago, bleating about how we have to do more to support our police against Trump protesters.... and now DCUM is right back to “ACAB! F’-Twelve!”


I guess there’s no ethics like situational ethics, eh?

You are hopelessly illogical. It pains you to see that the DCUMers aren't rigid in their judgements. It is completely reasonable to support the Capital Police in what they experience 1/6 and also to expect law enforcement to deal with the problems with racism in policing. Your authoritarian rigidity prevents YOU from being reasonable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Poor guy is afraid to move.

Really? He is too afraid to obey the police? Why do I suspect the Army might be the wrong career for him?

All he had to do was obey their directions and there would have been ample time to discuss whatever they had pulled him over for.

When you get pulled over you don't get to dictate to the police whether you will or won't obey their commands. Courts have ruled over and over and over again that the police are legally allowed to order you to get out of the vehicle at their discretion. This is to protect the safety of the police, for whom traffic stops can be very dangerous.

The police don't know who they are interacting with, what that person's state of mind is, whether they are armed, etc.

Wow. You are clueless about what happens.

Let's analyze and I have some experience with this: They had reason to stop him. They had reason to be concerned as they approached. So the threat level is raised and they have greater options of what they can do. But they saw the paper tag before all of this started going down hill. That took away some but not all of the seriousness of this. No doubt they need to check this out and be safe. But seeing a paper tag should have taken this down a notch. Seeing the guy in uniform makes a difference. To the people who say it does not: Police have to make assessments quickly based on things they are trained on and based on their own experience. Why would a guy in gang colors get treated differently than a guy in a suit? Because most of the time the threat is less. You do not drop your guard or give up the superior position. But a guy in an army uniform, and almost any cop can tell a real uniform from stuff from a surplus store, --- should take it back a notch, not to zero but back. They had two officers there. They have control. They should have assessed that what they may have thought to be something like a stolen car may not be --- tag and a guy in uniform -- may be something else. Now the guy appears to not be cooperating but he is calm, not aggressive. In 2021 I can't say as I blame him and people driving to well lit areas is common enough now that you have to assess. He is not cooperating but his demeanor is at least neutral in terms of the threat level in 2021 the cops need to pause. At this point the cops had control. No reason to pepper spray. There is no department where it is policy to use a chemical agent on a guy sitting in a car with a seatbelt on. What should have been done is calm things. Wait him out. Reason with him. Have the patrol supervisor come out. When that guy sees a supervisor, he will come right out. Instead they then make it worse and say crazy stuff.

They are not doing a great job prior to the pepper spray. But the point where it goes off the rails is when they deploy the agent. Now they are out of bounds. They then force him out of the car in a fairly rough manner. Why? He was pepper sprayed. Force used is too high at that point.

This could have gone fine but it did not. One last point: why wasn't he charged with anything? only one reason IMO: the patrol supervisor came and saw the mess the old guy caused: guy pulled over for no plate and tinted windows -- but there is a plate and the windows are an okay tint (I say that because they look ok in the video but I will tell you that you cannot tell at night in the dark so that is just a BS reason). Instead of a typical perp with a gun and drugs (which is what the expected to find), the have an Army LT -- who happens to be black. Pepper spray not deployed to policy and they roughed the guy up. Some supervisors would take these cops to task but most would just let the LT go and yell at these two fools and hope this goes away.

I don't know why the first officer decided to do a felony stop? Maybe it was justified, maybe not.

This guy is a total fool for not complying with the instructions and he deserves what he got. You don't know what the cop knows. A bank could have been robbed by someone matching your description.

As far as pepper spray goes, police are allowed to use one level of force higher than the suspect. This guy was actively resisting the officers. But dept. policy will dictate, and nobody here knows their policy.

And the senior cop was pretty crappy overall, while the younger one seemed to be doing a better job.

Lastly, one officer could have re-holstered his Glock and put some cuffs on the guy while his hand were through the window.

Too too funny. The bolded is what they always say. The lt did not "deserve what he got". He shouldn't have been pulled over and they never should have drawn their guns on him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Poor guy is afraid to move.

Really? He is too afraid to obey the police? Why do I suspect the Army might be the wrong career for him?

All he had to do was obey their directions and there would have been ample time to discuss whatever they had pulled him over for.

When you get pulled over you don't get to dictate to the police whether you will or won't obey their commands. Courts have ruled over and over and over again that the police are legally allowed to order you to get out of the vehicle at their discretion. This is to protect the safety of the police, for whom traffic stops can be very dangerous.

The police don't know who they are interacting with, what that person's state of mind is, whether they are armed, etc.

Wow. You are clueless about what happens.

Let's analyze and I have some experience with this: They had reason to stop him. They had reason to be concerned as they approached. So the threat level is raised and they have greater options of what they can do. But they saw the paper tag before all of this started going down hill. That took away some but not all of the seriousness of this. No doubt they need to check this out and be safe. But seeing a paper tag should have taken this down a notch. Seeing the guy in uniform makes a difference. To the people who say it does not: Police have to make assessments quickly based on things they are trained on and based on their own experience. Why would a guy in gang colors get treated differently than a guy in a suit? Because most of the time the threat is less. You do not drop your guard or give up the superior position. But a guy in an army uniform, and almost any cop can tell a real uniform from stuff from a surplus store, --- should take it back a notch, not to zero but back. They had two officers there. They have control. They should have assessed that what they may have thought to be something like a stolen car may not be --- tag and a guy in uniform -- may be something else. Now the guy appears to not be cooperating but he is calm, not aggressive. In 2021 I can't say as I blame him and people driving to well lit areas is common enough now that you have to assess. He is not cooperating but his demeanor is at least neutral in terms of the threat level in 2021 the cops need to pause. At this point the cops had control. No reason to pepper spray. There is no department where it is policy to use a chemical agent on a guy sitting in a car with a seatbelt on. What should have been done is calm things. Wait him out. Reason with him. Have the patrol supervisor come out. When that guy sees a supervisor, he will come right out. Instead they then make it worse and say crazy stuff.

They are not doing a great job prior to the pepper spray. But the point where it goes off the rails is when they deploy the agent. Now they are out of bounds. They then force him out of the car in a fairly rough manner. Why? He was pepper sprayed. Force used is too high at that point.

This could have gone fine but it did not. One last point: why wasn't he charged with anything? only one reason IMO: the patrol supervisor came and saw the mess the old guy caused: guy pulled over for no plate and tinted windows -- but there is a plate and the windows are an okay tint (I say that because they look ok in the video but I will tell you that you cannot tell at night in the dark so that is just a BS reason). Instead of a typical perp with a gun and drugs (which is what the expected to find), the have an Army LT -- who happens to be black. Pepper spray not deployed to policy and they roughed the guy up. Some supervisors would take these cops to task but most would just let the LT go and yell at these two fools and hope this goes away.

I don't know why the first officer decided to do a felony stop? Maybe it was justified, maybe not.

This guy is a total fool for not complying with the instructions and he deserves what he got. You don't know what the cop knows. A bank could have been robbed by someone matching your description.

As far as pepper spray goes, police are allowed to use one level of force higher than the suspect. This guy was actively resisting the officers. But dept. policy will dictate, and nobody here knows their policy.

And the senior cop was pretty crappy overall, while the younger one seemed to be doing a better job.

Lastly, one officer could have re-holstered his Glock and put some cuffs on the guy while his hand were through the window.

Too too funny. The bolded is what they always say. The lt did not "deserve what he got". He shouldn't have been pulled over and they never should have drawn their guns on him.

This guy was probably like the pp and watched one too many "bad cop" videos. Hey pp, you should resist the next time you are pulled over. Let us know how it works out for you. It's called a self fulfilling prophecy.