Posted on 09/22/2007 8:03:54 AM PDT by beltfed308
ST. GEORGE — A police officer who was recorded berating a motorist earlier this month has lost his job.
The board of aldermen voted 5-0, with one member absent, to fire Sgt. James Kuehnlein on Monday. The vote was cast in a session closed to the public and wasn't announced until Wednesday, when a notice was posted at the City Hall of this tiny south St. Louis County community.
In a video that got wide viewership on the Internet, Kuehnlein taunts and threatens motorist Brett Darrow, 20, sometimes shouting and using profanity, after questioning him in a commuter lot near Interstate 55. Darrow posted the footage of the Sept. 7 incident on the web.
(Excerpt) Read more at stltoday.com ...
Let's take a look at what I said:
I suspect you're projecting. Good thing for all of us most cops have a little more discipline than you.
Do try to avoid such blatant logical fallacies in your posts. They make you look, well, idiotic.
What you should be concerned about is your apparent belief that cops are running around committing firing offenses, and are unable to control themselves.
I find it pretty humorous that you attempt to defend cops by insulting them. Kind of like the liberals who "defend" our troops by saying they're low-intellect kids who were suckered into enlisting.
Of course. But something tells me you wouldn't be at this site defending the drunk driver by saying that the cop was probably driven by a personal desire rather than public service.
It did not happen to me.
Full story here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1900753/posts
Best regards,
I do hope you're kidding.
The kid has got a police scanner in his car along with multiple cameras transmitting to a secure recorder. He's driving around at 2am. He pulls into a deserted commuter parking lot in a high crime area (which is why the cop is there). The kid has absolutely no reason for being in that lot at that time.
In my opinion, that constitutes reasonable suspicion.
When the cop approaches the car and asks a few legitimate questions (why are you here, driver's license, proof of insurance) the kid gets an attitude.
But he's not setting up the cop? Fine. Then why was the kid there at that hour with that equipment in his car?
lOl. I’ve routinely used turn signals since I started driving at 15 years of age. Sure he was trying to set-up the police officer. Had the officer acted in a professional manner, we wouldn’t be talking about it.
Seems to me that people with that attitude wouldn't object to cops staking out bars, wedding receptions, New Year's Eve parties and the like to catch drunk drivers.
Would you approve of the police doing so?
Oh my. I wouldn't go so far as to call him that. Childish and naive, maybe. But we need to pity him, not call him names.
Eventually.
Did he ever answer the cops question of why he was there at that hour?
apparently the kid had their own arrest cam in the car.
Tell the Police Chief your lawyer is going to subpeona the Department CALEA Standards on the maintenance and disposal of official documents and dashcam videos.
He is sunk either way. He has either violated the standards or his department is run in such a sloppy manner it has no standards.
In any case the patrol officer and in many cases even his supervisor are not allowed access to the video recorder in his patrol car.
Only the crime scene investigation unit is supposed to have access to the bullet/burn-proof steel box that houses the dashcam video recorder in the car trunk.
It may be time to clean house in your Police Department.
Best regards,
The Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, Inc.
Same question about multiple cameras and a transmitter/secure recorder.
Even if all of the above were true, it does not constitute probable cause for search since none of the above is the least bit illegal.
The kid had lost a “cops word vs his word” once before and claimed the LEO lied. Since then he wired his car. You are aware this is not the first transcript and video he has put out about local police misconduct? The prior one was not quite as bad, but the LEO was also out of line.
Even us old farts who a number of cross country miles under our belts know enough to record every interaction with LEOs, “just in case”. If you don’t you are a fool. I am not the only one in this thread who has had problems with local yokel LEOs.
If he had walked up to the cop and started trash talking, your claim of a set up or entrapment might have minor merit. He did none of the above.
The perp (the former sgt) based on what has come out should never have had a badge to begin with. A professional LEO would have behaved that way, it would have been a simple ID check and that would have been it.
This was a high crime area. What would you have the cop do? Honor the kid's constitutional right to park on public property for no reason wherever and whenever he wants? Sure. He could have done that.
And if the kid pulled in there to take a little nap and then was assaulted, would you be joining the public chorus asking for the cop to be fired for allowing such a thing in a high crime area?
Or if the kid was found later to have assaulted someone else in that parking lot that night, and had a history of doing so, would you be demanding that the cop be fired for being so lazy as to not even demand an ID and a reason for being there?
Isn't monday-morning quarterbacking fun? People appear to be so SMART when doing so.
I may be able to assist you with this transcript coming soon to an Onstar Equipped Vehicle near you:
Onstar Roadside Legal Assistance: What is the nature of your roadside legal Emergency?
Onstar, I have just been pulled over by (State) Highway Law Enforcement on US Highway (NUMBER, Location) What should I do?
Officer, please identify yourself and explain for the record the probable cause for detaining my client in (State, Location). Your answer will be archived in a secure remote location........
Cops rarely get punished for their misdeeds.”
Chances are he will get a job at another police dept. in another state within a month.
And if the cop leaves this known high crime area and the kid gets assaulted and robbed, no one will blame the cop. Right?
The kid or his parents won't be upset and sue the City of St. Louis for $10 million -- after all, their son was merely exercising his constitutional rights.
I doubt it. If there were no cameras or recorders, this kid would never have been so stupid as to antagonize the officer.
Let’s put the high crime area to rest. I lived just above that lot in St. Louis on Mullally Dr. I could look down on it quite clearly. This is not a high crime area.
The house I was in belonged to a former Police Officer that bought it in a safe neighborhood to raise his daughter (that was over 20 years ago). He is recently deceased and I rented the house from his daughter (her husband is a good friend of mine). As you can imagine it is an older neighborhood, but a clean and decent one.
The house is one block outside of St. George as he was required to live in the city of St. Louis, but for all practical purposes it was in St. George (not sure if the commuter lot is actually St. George as St. Louis is very gerrymandered).
Your tendency to argue the side of the law is useful in many of these threads, keeps people sharp on the other side. But in this case it is pretty clear that the law was wrong. You admit that the officer was in the wrong. But if the kid didn't run the camera, the officer would have gotten away with it.
The bottom line is that the officer serves the public, you, me, and the kid. In his role as public servant, the officer has zero fourth and fifth amendment rights from the public that they serve. Their role is absolutely public, and can be monitored and recorded for any reason at any time.
In 2006, there were 3 violent crimes and 29 property crimes in St. George, in a population of 1242. Source
That equates to 25.8 crimes per 1000 people, and a violent crime rate of 2.4 per 1000. As I recall the national average for violent crime is just under 2 per 1000.
So I'd hardly call this a "high crime area", notwithstanding the comments this (proven liar) cop made on the tape.
See #239.
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