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SSG Squad Leader
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This is a bad approach. The officer didn’t stick to a violator contact method. Which states who you are and why you pulled the car over. Smelling marijuana is PC to search a vehicle. The whole handcuffing, I do it all the time for my own safety. Handcuffed does not mean your arrested unless verbally told so by the officer. I’ve been in the same scenario where I smell marijuana, search and find nothing. If they are high as a kite, then I field sobriety test and maybe arrest them for DUI depending on their performance. If they just smoked at home but aren’t high (which usually what it is), I type out the warning for the stop and tell them to stop smoking and driving.
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Patricia Overmeyer
Patricia Overmeyer
>1 y
Yes, technically it does not mean you are arrested. However, placing someone in handcuffs for "officer safety" is one of the more blatantly used excuses for handcuffing persons. If you want to ask further questions of your detainee, then I would seriously argue they are not free to leave the scene and you need to Mirandize them. And I've won that argument in trial court several times.
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SSG Squad Leader
SSG (Join to see)
>1 y
I’d rather go to court, then have my life at risk. You can call it whatever excuse you want. I’m going home to my family.
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MAJ James Woods
MAJ James Woods
>1 y
Right. Sure. Ok. Whatever. How many times did he ask if the car was his? Some of us know what intimidation and harassment looks like. The driver didn't even do anything wrong that should have led to pulling them over; suddenly the cop is interrogating them hoping to find something on them. Didn't run a stop. Didn't fail to use a signal. Wasn't driving erratic. Yeah I've been in this movie before. "I smell pot"...sure he does. I'm sure he smelled as he followed them.
If you consider handcuffing a driver in a routine stop as normal operating procedures out of concern of safety then that's a problem. If you do it only with certain kinds of individuals like say minorities, then we have an even bigger problem. Oh and you did note that the officer never...not once...told the young men the reason for pulling them over. So yeah, I call BS.
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SSG Squad Leader
SSG (Join to see)
>1 y
I’m agreeing the officer handled in wrong, all I’m saying is handcuffing for your own safety isn’t always a unlawful thing and is used as a precaution measure. I never said I do it to all traffic stops or even mentioned minorities in my comment. MAJ James Woods
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Patricia Overmeyer
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This is a real video of a police stop. It was retrieved by the Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement. This particular police officer has a history of targeting people of color, mainly African Americans, in the community. They have requested an internal review of this stop, as well as others. If you watch the video closely, there is no violation by the driver of any driving law. His violation of the law, driving while black.
Also notice, the officer repeatedly states that he smells marijuana and he can see shake on the ground. Really? Where the hell is that shake? Never see him picking any up. Then he continually asks about a weapon, while stating that the passenger is giving him reason to believe there is a gun simply by the way he is holding himself. The officer continually goes on about a weapon and marijuana, but never finds one.
When the young man is handcuffed, that is an arrest as he is not free to leave. He is placed in the back of the police car. And why does the officer needs to pull his pants down? Really? That is sexual harassment. At that point, the officer then decides to do some searching in the car. There are no exigent circumstances for searching the car at that point as the officer is not in danger and there is no reason to believe that any evidence is going to be destroyed. Go get a warrant. But he searches the car, finds nothing but then goes on and on again about how there must be a weapon and just go ahead and confess to smoking pot. What is really disgusting, is that the one who is de-escalating the situation is the young man who is arrested.
The passenger's mother spoke about this incident: "I'm horrified. I've been saying this for years that our kids are barely making it out of routine traffic stops," Laural Clinton said. "We've been lulled into some kind of security, thinking that, 'Oh, at least you didn't get killed or go to jail,' as some prize for being harassed."
This is racial profiling, plain and simple. And the police officer is probably going to get a promotion for it because the police department said he followed standard procedure.
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Cpl Jeff N.
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Edited >1 y ago
I cant attest to the veracity of the video but if it is accurate (It seems to be) then I have a lot of issues with it. I don't like the old "I am cuffing you for my safety" BS. If you are that afraid, go get another job. I would not want to be cuffed over a cops "concern for their safety".

The entire Q and A was clumsy and repetitive. I would have become agitated being questioned like that. I know policing can be dangerous but these tactics need to be cleaned up.

His gut was just about 100% wrong. There was no gun in the car and appeared to be no pot in the car. He tried to talk the drive into confessing to having smoked weed in the car. The cuffing was unnecessary. The driver was pretty polite and respectful too. You might notice that the 2nd officer never cuffed the guy the 1st officer thought might have a weapon.

There might have been a legitimate reasons to pull the car over, no turn signal or perhaps speeding (if he was, couldn't tell) but the rest of that stop was not their finest hour.
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MAJ James Woods
MAJ James Woods
>1 y
I agree. I watched it twice looking for any reason to pull that vehicle over. Nothing. The officer never even told the driver why he pulled them over. All the more likely the officer had ulterior motive for what he did.
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