Posted on 09/12/2007 8:20:27 AM PDT by SubGeniusX
A car-mounted video camera — more commonly used by police than against them — captured a loud and threatening confrontation in this tiny St. Louis County community that left an officer on suspension and the whole world able to listen in.
[snip]
A voice identified as Kuehnlein's can be heard taunting the driver and threatening to jail him on fabricated charges.
The tape, made late last week, was from a camera running in the vehicle Kuehnlein approached, police said.
[snip]
In the video, Kuehnlein, a St. George officer for about two years, approaches a young man who was sitting in a parked car about 2 a.m. in a commuter lot near Spokane and Reavis Barracks roads. Kuehnlein asks for identification. When Darrow asks whether he did anything wrong, the officer orders him out of the car and begins shouting.
"You want to try me? You want to try me tonight? You think you have a bad night? I will ruin your night. … Do you want to try me tonight, young boy?"
Darrow says no.
"Do you want to go to jail for some (expletive) reason I come up with?" the police officer says. Later, Darrow says, "I don't want any problems, officer."
"You're about to get it," Kuehnlein is heard saying. "You already started your (expletive) problems with your attitude."
After the officer notices the camera, he says, "I don't really care about your cameras, 'cause I'm about ready to tow your car, then we can tear 'em all apart."
[snip]
Darrow said he was not trying to entrap the officer. He said he pulled into the commuter lot to meet a friend. When the officer asked him for identification, Darrow said he didn't immediately present it because he believes the officer stopped him without probable cause.
(Excerpt) Read more at stltoday.com ...
I live in Seattle and the cops here are great. I find most big city cops don’t have the time or desire to hone their desire to own “their” streets. They just want to do the best job they can and go home in one piece.
I find it’s the cops with too much time on their hands that tend to be the ones that get too full of themselves. And you’re also correct about the small pay/small mind correlation.
I do wish that local governments would direct their police to solve crimes more than devise ways to employ them in revenue generating activities. That of course, is not a cop problem, that’s a legislature problem.
Deductive knowledge that most police officers are good guys and their authority is the barrier between your safe, middle class neighborhood and the nearest slum is one thing.
Reconciling that with empirical observations that largely consist of capricious revenue traffic stops and news articles reporting “Cop threatens to invent charges”, “Cop tazes 85 year old woman”, “Cop stomps family pet”, “Cops invade wrong home and murder grandmother”, etc. is tough.
I don’t blame cop haters for making an obvious if incorrect conclusion, I blame police departments like the one in this article for making that conclusion the obvious one. That this thug with a badge still has a badge says it all.
“Can we say the same about you?”
You already do.
Brilliant retort. I`ll ping it for reference.
If a cop commits a crime people have the inherent right
to call his actions piggish, as anyone would if it were
civilian on civilian crime.
The fact you dislike the reality that some cops are young,
brash and stupid, just like the rest of society seems to
irk you in a personal way. It`s as if you were a young
brash know-it-all officer on a power trip ;-)
What part of this are you missing???
Where did you get that quote? It's not in either what you posted, or in the article linked to. I even searched for the word "resisted" and it appears nowhere on the linked page.
Um, post number one, maybe?
Oops, asleep at the switch. I see that point was posted further up.
Please see my Post #1 in this thread... it also contains a link to the video and transcript...
Good, a man with this ego and attitude SHOULD never work in uniform again.
But I'm holding firm that charges should be brought against this man and that law officers need to be treated ESPECIALLY harsh when they are found abusing that authority.
Do any of you freaking people ever bother to read a complete paragraph?
I don’t think she was there!............IIRC, she was married to one of the cops...........
o.k. I missed that. I just read the article. Thanks.
It still seems like the officer is pointing out (taking advantage of) law rather than threatening to make up instances.
It’s obnoxious, but probably not illegal.
That officer had problems, especially knowing a camera was going on his car.
The mental state is a real issue of that officer IMO.
Of course if the officer stated as you suggested....that there has been some crime reported in this parking lot...he would have been lying to trump up a reason to stop the boy.
The kid is a crusader against vile police corruption and he is also a hero.
Of course if the officer stated as you suggested....that there has been some crime reported in this parking lot...he would have been lying to trump up a reason to stop the boy.
The kid is a crusader against vile police corruption and he is also a hero.
Nothing in that video construes resisting arrest. The officer threatened to send him to jail for resisting arrest, which he didn’t do.
Gee, I wonder why the cop “lost” his cruiser tape...
“Sounds to me like everybody driving through St. George needs to have a video camera.”
Sounds to me like people just need to drive around St. George.
See post 59.
If it was a setup, I’m glad the kid did it. Maybe they had information there was a cop like that in that town.
Yikes.
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