What say Freepers?
I would hate to be in that situation, but the police followed their procedures and the two students were released. The first student, Hassan, is probably going to say he was profiled.
Our current state of in-civility and criminality in this country has driven our law enforcement to this point. Society has to determine if we want it to continue (militarization of LEO) or go back to the Keystone Cops era.
I was 18, sitting in my car with two friends. Waiting for a third. We were going clay bird shooting. A couple of shotguns sticking up in the back seat, I was wasting time looking at the young women going into the bank down the road with my friends binoculars. Across the street from it was the police station.
3 unmarked cars scream in cops run out guns drawn. We are all put up against the car and cuffed with Guns pointed at us.
“WE’RE GOING SKEET SHOOTING …LOOK IN THE TRUNK!!” I scream.
As the trunk pops open the 4th member of our party exits the apartment building with a side by side 12 broke open in the crook of his arm “what’s going on” he says. As the trunk opens revealing the skeet machine two boxes of skeet and 5-6 boxes of #7.5 loads.
“Oh We saw you glassing the bank and the guns and well…”.
Th cops left. We went skeet shooting.
Didn’t make the papers. Nobody sued. Life goes on. My friends had a good laugh at my expense for glassing the skirts. Which would be another ‘heinous crime ‘ today.
It’s called a felony stop. Everybody went home.
I was still recovering from gunshot wounds from Vietnam, so I had difficulty getting out of the car when the officer demanded it - I had a full-length steel leg brace and crutches and he stuck the muzzle of that riot gun in my face, yelling.
I was shaking all over and had no idea what the hell was going on. He didn't shoot (obviously) and when he settled down, wrote me up for an "unsafe lane change" after he told me that I looked like an armed robbery suspect.
I read in the papers the next day that the LAPD shot and killed another guy who they thought was the armed robbery suspect but he turned out to be the wrong guy and a father going home to his children.
Great fun.
I was in the process of moving from Virginia to Illinois. Car had va plates. Walked out of the hotel and was surrounded by FBI and local police with guns drawn! Stopped and did what they said. Turns out a murderer drove the same make and model car with va plates. I followed orders and didn’t get shot...imagine that!
Black girl with a Muzzi boyfriend?
The same thing happened to my roommate years ago. His car fit the description of a bank robbers and Five squads descended on him at once.
He told me later that all the cops were cool except one really young officer who was shaking violently while aiming his gun at him.
I guess I’m always amazed when a fool decides he’s less safe when he is being checked out without the ability to use a gun on an approaching law enforcement person who will show restraint, than when he is being accosted by a felon that won’t. I can’t count the amount of times I’ve read about a cop being capped when he approached a car they pulled for something to include a minor traffic violation. And this pull was to check for a felony based upon a description of the car. Sometimes safety can be an inconvenience as it is unsafe in its nature.
rwood
Delivering in Toronto, stopped at a red light waiting to make a turn.
The light changed, I made my turn and suddenly flashing lights behind me.
Pulled over, looked out rearview mirrors and saw cops approaching with guns drawn.
My first thought was ‘Wow, they take traffic offences seriously here in Toronto’.
Turned out I supposedly fit the description of a bank robber.
They took me to the bank and the folks there said, ‘Nah, that’s not the guy’.
Made for an interesting change of pace day.
In this case, it sounds like they were correct to control the scene first.
In much more benign circumstances of my own experience, I’ve never had a cop NOT say why he was now present in my life, e.g., “we received a complaint that...”
So in this case, I’d presume that once in cuffs, they’d say they were responding to the armed robbery complaint and the vehicle matched the description. Were it me, I’d get it. That’s not to say there aren’t times when I think force is excessive or flat out wrong, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here,.
There should be a class. They can fit it in by dropping the gay or global warming stuff.