EEllis wrote:Why? I mean he has reason to believe that you captured criminal activity they can easily get a warrant to get the footage I would bet the only question is having you sit by the side of the road while they wait for a warrant. If they think you are in cahoots with the other bikers it makes sense that you might so something to the footage so it seems to me that, and mind you I have no idea about case law on such a thing, but it seems like they could make you sit and wait for a while at least while they get a warrant. You want to worry then worry about a smarter cop who wants to jam you up. If the cop had just acted like a regular stop and blamed it on the plate then he could arrest you and the camera would be in property and they can take their time getting a warrant.
OK, so you're driving along in your compact car......let's say it's a Toyota Camry or something analogous.......and a swarm of other drivers unknown to you, all driving in similar kinds of cars and exhibiting questionable driving behavior, overtakes you and passes you. Your car is kind of your hobby too, and it has nice aftermarket wheels and a spoiler, maybe some performance modifications, and some of the other overtaking cars driven by those strangers are like yours in that regard. You are not speeding, and you periodically switch back and forth between the "slow lane" and the one next to it, trying to balance your need to A) stay out of the way of the overtaking swarm, and B) out of the way of cars trying to merge onto the freeway. You have a GoPro camera on your dashboard recording all of this.
This same pissant officer comes up behind you, lights you up where you can't pull over, and when you finally do get to where you can safely pull over, this officer manhandles you and slams the door of his car on your foot, dismounts the camera from your dashboard and confiscates it, and drags you off to jail........
You're OK with all that? If you answer "yes," I'm going to call you out for not having fully considered all the implications, because:
- The officer would have had ZERO reason for picking you out of that group. He has, without reasoning it through, decided that because you're driving a compact car with nice wheels and a spoiler (profiling?), and so are the large group of strangers who overtake you, then you must automatically be with them......but he hasn't actually observed you violating the law. That is false reasoning. That's no better than if I were to arrest you because some other guy across town committed a burglary, and somebody, anybody has got to be arrested for it, and you happen to have brown hair, and witnesses say the burglar had brown hair. Doesn't matter if you're the guilty party or not.
- You have violated no laws, giving him no reason to pull you over instead of pulling over someone who actually WAS violating traffic laws.
- But, in the process of spiraling further into full retard, this dillweed has noticed that you have a GoPro on your dashboard, and he wants to confiscate it from you over some kind of obscure—and WRONG—thought process in his lint-stuffed brain that maybe your camera recorded what was going on. What's wrong with this? Well, for one thing, HE DOESN'T EVEN KNOW IF YOU HAVE IT TURNED ON OR NOT!!! For another thing, using that logic, he could just take you into custody as a material witness, on the grounds that you might have witnessed something. I mean, REALLY???
- When you rightfully insist on being given a coherent explanation for why you were 1) stopped in the first place, and 2) why your rights are being violated, this fool roughs you up and slams a car door on your foot, and steals your camera. (It is theft because he took it illegally.) Why does he do that? He does it because he 1) cannot articulate a coherent reason for having stopped you in the first place, and 2) he cannot articulate a coherent reason for violating your rights..........so he gets physical instead and "punishes" you for questioning the legitimacy of his authority at this point.
- Then, he takes you to jail (false imprisonment) where you have to spend significant cash to bail out, and then you have to spend more significant cash to lawyer up and go through the whole legal process, until someone higher up than him (in both rank and IQ) ARRIVES AT THE SAME CONCLUSION THAT YOU DID WHEN BACK YOU WERE STOPPED!!!!!! And who reimburses you for the expense of bailing out and retaining a lawyer? This waste oxygen was waaaaaaaaaay out of line and deserved the suspension without pay (a very unusual step....usually they are suspended with pay) pending the outcome of the investigation into his violation of a citizens Constitutional Rights.......
.......and you're OK with all that?
Thats the kind of thinking which permits all kinds of evil to happen in the world, and I'd like to hope that you're a better person than that. In fact, that is the kind of thinking that MOST cops would very much disagree with because it violates
their oaths of honor—something which, fortunately, most of
them take far more seriously that this guy did.
Here is my advice to you....... There is a very big difference between submitting to lawful authority on the one hand, and questioning that authority when it begins to behave unlawfully on the other hand (Rosa Parks comes to mind)......
and that is the predicament our motorcycle rider found himself in. We either believe in the rule of law, or the rule of men. The victim here—the guy who was pulled over—put his faith in the rule of law and was rightfully outraged when he was singled out for persecution by a cop who fundamentally didn't care
who he pulled over, as long as he pulled over someone on a motorcycle. That officer believed in the rule of men. The officer was after a group of motorcyclists and he lacked sufficient pre-frontal cortex to distinguish between a guy who was just cruising along on a bike, minding his own business, and the larger group that he was out to "teach a lesson." And since when is it a cop's job to "teach lessons?" In the old days, they used to lynch a black man if a white woman got raped, and if they couldn't identify
which black man had done it (if it even
was a black man), then any old black man would do. THAT is what you've just stood up for by defending this bad cop.
I
want to respect the authority of police. I
want to be able to have confidence that they are not setting themselves up to be my judge and jury. I
want to know that they are just doing their jobs to
enforce the laws made by other people and and that they are not making up their own laws on the fly. I
want to know that they themselves will trust the rest of the legal system to dispense justice (or mercy if that's what's called for) to the people whom they stop, ticket, or arrest. And I
want them to be conscientiously and absolutely cognizant of the fact that their authority over
any of us depends on the legitimacy of their actions. I
want them to know and understand that their actions are ONLY legitimate when they uplift and uphold the law......and that their actions are devoid of legitimacy when they HIDE BEHIND the law in order to break it. I
want to live in an orderly society where all of us, the law enforcers too, stand equal before the bar. This fool betrayed all of that. Whenever a police officer betrays that trust, he further damages and erodes the confidence that The People can have in their law enforcement agencies. That is NEVER a good thing. Our society
depends absolutely on impartial and
reasonable law enforcement.
If this guy didn't want to be recorded on video for being crapulent, then he shouldn't have
behaved crapulently. If he had been true to his oath of honor, he would have
at the very worst written the ticket for not being able to read the license plate (I was
easily able to see it on the tiny video) and simply let the guy go to deal with the ticket in court if he wanted to. That the motorcyclist complained about getting a ticket was totally irrelevant. It would even be irrelevant if he were guilty of the infraction. He has a
first amendment right to complain about what he thinks is unfair treatment. Instead, this lint-headed fool of a cop decided to dispense street justice.
THAT is what this particular officer did here. He hid behind the law to dispense street justice, and there should be no place on any police force for a person who does this. Any police force that would retain such an officer had better make a public and very real and sincere show, through actions and not just words, of acknowledging the wrong and retraining the officer, and putting him on notice that his future employment hinges 100% on his faithful adherence to the oath of honor that he took when he became a police officer.
In case you have any haziness about what this means, here is a version of the oath of honor taken from the International Association of Chiefs of Police, so this is a
globally recognized standard (
http://www.theiacp.org/PoliceServices/P ... fault.aspx):
- On my honor,
I will never betray my badge (1), my integrity, my character, or the public trust.
I will always have the courage to hold myself and others accountable for our actions.
I will always uphold the constitution (2) my community (3) and the agency I serve.
Before any officer takes the Law Enforcement Oath of Honor, it is important that he/she understands what it means. An oath is a solemn pledge someone makes when he/she sincerely intends to do what he/she says. [emphasis mine]
Honor means that one's word is given as a guarantee.
Betray is defined as breaking faith with the public trust.
Badge is the symbol of your office.
Integrity is being the same person in both private and public life.
Character means the qualities that distinguish an individual.
Public trust is a charge of duty imposed in faith toward those you serve.
Courage is having the strength to withstand unethical pressure, fear or danger.
Accountability means that you are answerable and responsible to your oath of office.
Community is the jurisdiction and citizens served.
Down at the very bottom of that page, the following annotations are explained:
(1) Insert appropriate term such as: badge; profession; country
(2) Insert appropriate term such as: constitution, laws; monarch
(3) Insert appropriate term such as: community; country; land; nation
You and I both know that this officer's reasoning does not rise to meet these expectations of him. If you'll just admit that you were wrong this time, then you'll start getting a lot more respect from others for some of your other opinions going forward, even when they disagree with you.
Personally for me, if you can't admit it, then I just can't take anything you say seriously enough to give it due consideration before responding......which means I won't respond at all. I'd rather that not be the case.
“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.”
― G. Michael Hopf, "Those Who Remain"
#TINVOWOOT
but everything you saw on the video was seen in real time by the police. I'd have to watch the video again to be sure but I believe I saw at least two police cars pass (or were passed) in the video prior the the biker being pulled over.
There is no charge for use of commas, periods or other forms of punctuation.
. Then arresting him just to take the camera for an obstructed license plate? I wonder if this LEO's name is "stretch" as he is sure trying to stretch his authority into a place it doesn't go. Who gets arrested for an obstructed license plate? There is a term for that but it would violate forum rules if I posted it. Had he actually made the stop for the license plate being obstructed, he had enough time to run the guy and write the coupon and then he needed to cut the guy loose. Too many overstep their boundaries after that time with unreasonable detentions and in this case an unreasonable arrest. I guess he forgot that lecture about the letter of the law and spirit of the law. A 38 day suspension is a hefty fine and I imagine that he will get hit with a federal civil rights violation law suit for unreasonable search and seizure. 
