Yet More Tensions in the States...

Bigga said:
In 'normal' circumstances, I would agree with your entire post. But, your point is not a factor in lieu of the video in the original post.

It seems to me the cop is looking for an argument and is maybe casting his authority of a White MALE officer against someone he sees as inferior, in every way. He asks her a question and she replies, explaining why she's reacting the way she is. He IS passive aggressive in his responses. She poses no threat, in fact she complies with everything he asks for except getting out of the car. Why would she need to do this unless the 'officer' verbally expresses suspicion of DUI or is making an actual arrest?

He is merely actioning his dominance, especially as he lays hands on her to forcibly remove her from the car. I think you will agree he steps out of his job description, at this point. He is not afraid, but HE is irritated by her non-compliance. He knows she has no weapon, just a cigarette, which is why he does what he does and forfeits his own 'personal space' and invades hers. He compounds this, further, un-holstering his taser (not his firearm) in her direction.

I think none of his actions, after the 'cigarette' catalyst are straightforward and I think he's being a bully and using his uniform as a lawful reason to do so.

Maybe your post was in the general direction of cops vs civilians, but none of what you posted was relevant here.
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Bigga,

She does not comply. Why? Who is believing they are superior in that interaction and who takes BACK the position of superiority.

FWIW, in an interaction with the public, a police officer ALWAYS has to have a position of superiority or his life is at risk. In fact, it is cited in cases where officers get hurt...the person actually says "If he had acted like he was in charge, I wouldn't have done XXXX." That is exactly why I say "Take it up with the judge."

As for his "irritation" with her, I imagine he is very irritated, but none of that negates what SHE did. Simple traffic stop. Two minutes, done and dusted. But, in this case she is moving around in her vehicle, agitated, and is smoking. He asks her to put out the cigarette, why would she not comply with that? Could she use that to harm him? Was it making his eyes water and he was concerned he was not in complete control of the situation?

There are a million reasons why an officer can feel the need to exercise complete control over a situation, but by far the number one reason is that once there appears to be any shift in the balance of power in a situation, it can quickly turn against the officer.

Was the FINAL OUTCOME of what happened to her unfortunate? Of course, but the ONLY TIME this officer raises his voice is when she starts failing to comply. He raises his voice as a first step in attempting to regain full control of the situation (parent, anyone?). When he has lost control of what she is doing in the car, solely because of non-compliance, he seeks to regain that control by telling her to get out of the car, where he can regain it. She still seeks to non-comply....complete stupidity!

Does ANYONE think the officer is happy with the outcome? However, he had nothing to do with the final outcome. Did he exercise some form of extreme control over her in struggling to gain control of the situation? Well, to follow my retort from earlier, a Judge will now almost definitely decide that. But, I would imagine the biggest thing the officer thinks today is that he survived the event.
 
blueish swede said:
That sounds reasonable at first glance but why should a citizen surrender their rights just because a Police officer decides to exercise a power not granted to them by law?
That isn't non-compliance - that is defending liberty and civil rights.

At what point would a judge "take up" the issue of the abuse of rights? Was Sandra Bland given a fair and reasonable hearing before she was remanded in to custody?

Obviously not or she would never have gone to jail. Why did the judge not demand to see the Dash Cam during the hearing? Why is this not a standard practice in the legal system in Texas? If there is recorded evidence of the incident why does a judge not demand to see it? Had the video been shown it would have been clear that the arrest was ungrounded and unlawful and the trooper acted beyond his authority.

Do you think there will be any repercussions for the judge who sent Sanda Bland to jail and denied her her liberty? I don't.

Steven Thrasher has posted a good article in the Guardian about the non-effect of video recording of the Police.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/22/sandra-bland-cameras-police-misconduct
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When you break the law, you lose some of your liberty but your civil rights are not lost because of it!

When she gets a hearing, usually within 24 hrs, she would have had her say in front of the judge and the video may well be front and center. That's the way it works. Does it work differently in Sweden? The police have the benefit of the doubt when they come into contact with the public. However, the balance provided that benefit occurs when a judge gets to hear what happened and why. The scales of justice are supposed to be blind, but I will grant you that those scales may well be tipped slightly in favor of the public servant. That slight imbalance is taken away when a criminal suit is filed against the public servant, and becomes an even lower hurdle to overcome when a civil suit is filed, as the burden of "proof" of the over reach of the public servant is by its nature lower.

By the way, how come we have already seen the dashcam footage? Was someone sued for access or was it released by the police?

One thing we all need to understand is that what passes for normal behavior in one society is not always the same in another. In fact, in the U.S., we even see some variance from state to state, because they all have different laws underneath the overall umbrella of federal laws. We see that with things like guns and even with radar detectors. You can use your radar detector in one state, cross an almost imperceptible line into another state and it is now illegal!

Did something go wrong in this case? Yes, because someone died over a traffic violation!
Was the officer the one that killed her? Absolutely not.
Did his actions cast him in a bad light? Possibly.
Do we know most of what we know because of the officers dashcam? Clearly.
What would a judge have said about her behavior at the scene? I doubt we will ever really know now, because of what happened later.
Is there a lesson in this for everyone? I hope so.
What is the lesson? Probably different for people on different sides of the event.

And, while I'm willing to address some of the issues of what happened and perhaps shed some more light on why some of those things MIGHT have happened, I am not the spokesperson for the police and am not willing to be drawn deeper into a USA vs UK, guns are bad, police are pigs type dialogue.

Anyone who is non-responsive to reasonable police requests is asking to be treated as an adversary towards the officer and thus putting his safety in jeopardy. EVERYONE in the USA understands that ANYONE who challenges the authority of a police officer in a situation where there is a lawful reason for the interaction is going to lose in a court of law unless the officer exercises a clearly excessive use of force, because everyone also understands that the officer is very vulnerable when they approach ANY car due simply to the nature of a society flooded with guns and the ease with which they can be concealed.
 
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Bigga said:
Whilst you think it's just more racial 'aggravation' stirred up for no reason, there's actually a point where people start to react back. See the 'I Can't Breathe' campaign for starters moving on to sections of 'Black Lives Matter'..
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I'm aware of all that, Mike Brown and Eric Garner were fucked up cases, with dodgy goings on - but this is a mentally unstable woman acting unreasonably and later committing suicide - very little to see in terms of white vs black. IMHO.
 
Out of interest, what does "light you up" mean? Because he threatens to do it to her because she won't get out of the car. He also declares she is under arrest, but when asked what for doesn't reply (because she hasn't done anything worthy of arrest).

Whatever the larger issue, he seems to just be a shit police officer who doesn't know the law, or thinks he's above it. I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure you can't drag someone out of a car over a ticket. You have to arrest them, which he clearly knew, hence why he said you're under arrest when she mentioned this, then when he was challenged on that he threatened her with violence (I assume, I don't know exactly what "light you up" means) You can see why people aren't happy when the police just do whatever the fuck they please
 
quiet_riot said:
Shoot you.
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I thought that, but that means he threatened to kill her if she didn't get out of her car, when she wasn't even under arrest and was in no way threatening him? Seems like he lost his shit because she challenged him on the legality of what he was doing. You'd have thought he'd have to be in the shit for that, you surely aren't allowed to threaten to shoot people just because they don't do whatever they tell you? Then again, it's America, so fuck knows.
 
quiet_riot said:
Shoot you.
Click to expand...

Or taser you perhaps, being a traffic cop?

I dunno I think there is blame on both sides neither giving each other their due respect, he could see she was agitated yet he seemingly wanted to push her buttons, the way he said put your cigarette out listen to it closely. He may have had reason but she asked why should she have to, if it was because of keeping her hands still in case of a threat he should have explained right then and there when she asked for an explanation. Also by the time he was playing the 'stop struggling while I twist your arm' game you could tell she was going to ground soon after, at the same time she was provoking the situation shouting "pussy" to him in front of spectators. Respect should have been given on both sides IMO(black or white people know to "respect the law" to some extent it's common sense), as for what happened afterwards I really don't know as there's very little to go off, I really don't see enough motive for him to bump her off after just that though.
 
ChicagoBlue said:
Bigga,

She does not comply. Why? Who is believing they are superior in that interaction and who takes BACK the position of superiority.

FWIW, in an interaction with the public, a police officer ALWAYS has to have a position of superiority or his life is at risk. In fact, it is cited in cases where officers get hurt...the person actually says "If he had acted like he was in charge, I wouldn't have done XXXX." That is exactly why I say "Take it up with the judge."

As for his "irritation" with her, I imagine he is very irritated, but none of that negates what SHE did. Simple traffic stop. Two minutes, done and dusted. But, in this case she is moving around in her vehicle, agitated, and is smoking. He asks her to put out the cigarette, why would she not comply with that? Could she use that to harm him? Was it making his eyes water and he was concerned he was not in complete control of the situation?

There are a million reasons why an officer can feel the need to exercise complete control over a situation, but by far the number one reason is that once there appears to be any shift in the balance of power in a situation, it can quickly turn against the officer.

Was the FINAL OUTCOME of what happened to her unfortunate? Of course, but the ONLY TIME this officer raises his voice is when she starts failing to comply. He raises his voice as a first step in attempting to regain full control of the situation (parent, anyone?). When he has lost control of what she is doing in the car, solely because of non-compliance, he seeks to regain that control by telling her to get out of the car, where he can regain it. She still seeks to non-comply....complete stupidity!

Does ANYONE think the officer is happy with the outcome? However, he had nothing to do with the final outcome. Did he exercise some form of extreme control over her in struggling to gain control of the situation? Well, to follow my retort from earlier, a Judge will now almost definitely decide that. But, I would imagine the biggest thing the officer thinks today is that he survived the event.
Click to expand...

Again, his actions negate your interpretation of events. Are there a 'million reasons' as to why he couldn't explain the reason he wanted her cigarette put out except for dominance?

"Can you, please, put out your cigarette, it's making my eyes water?" A request, not an order and one more likely to be met with respect. Fear of cigarette burns, does not stop him from invading her space, clearly.

As BigOscar, correctly, says, she asked for a reason why she is being arrested. Do you know why it takes him so long to answer? Because his first answer is 'for non-compliance'!! I never knew that was an arrestable offence! He, later on, comes up with 'resisting arrest', but she wasn't physically violent towards him, just reacting to his aggression.

In the other video posted, how on earth does a taller, heavier man of authority feel threatened by a woman, handcuffed behind her back, enough to pick her up and slam her down face first. Both of these, are clear examples of abuse of power, rather than threats to their person.

Be nice if you admit that, at least, it wouldn't take away your support of the police.
 
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