Posted on 05/03/2007 8:41:59 PM PDT by Teflonic
Hillsborough County Deputy Kevin Stabins has been suspended for five days after an internal affairs investigation found he used excessive force on a woman he pulled over.
The woman, Melissa Langston, had been pulled over for going 63 in a 35 mile an hour zone on Nov. 1. Langston was on the way to make sure her father, who was driving himself to University Community Hospital after suffering a heart attack, got there safely.
When Stabins went back to his car to run her plates and write a ticket, the woman waited three minutes, but then took off and drove a short distance to park her car.
Stabins is accused of using excessive force to pull her out of her car and pin her to the hood.
Langston's father survived the heart attack and all charges against her were dropped. She spent about five hours in jail.
Stabins's suspension starts May 22.
The sheriff's office says Stabins said he thought Langston was making up the story about her father's heart attack and that Stabins is a good deputy who showed bad judgment.
Langston declined an interview request.
The conversations between Langston and Stabins
Langston: Hi, I'm so sorry. My father's having a heart attack, can I please get there?
Deputy: I need to see your license, registration and proof of insurance please.
Langston: Please, come on just take it in there.
Langston again tried to explain about her father's condition.
Deputy: He's in the care of the doctor ma'am.
Langston: I don't know that he's there. I don't know that he made it to the hospital. He was driving himself.
While Stabins was writing the ticket, Langston drove off to check the parking lot for her father's car. Stabins followed her and pulled her over a second time.
Deputy: That was not smart.
Langston: I need to get there. I'm sorry but I just need to get there.
Deputy: Put it in park. Put it in park. Put it in park. Out of the car. Hands behind your back. Now you're going to jail.
Langston: Please let me get to my dad. Please, my dad's having a heart attack. If it was your dad. . .
Stabins: Now you're not going to get to see him because you're going to jail. Not smart.
A point I was going to make but I was distracted. She was endangering others. I feel for her distress over her father. But what if she plowed into another car and killed others.
At what point was all that information known to the cop? When she was driving 63 in a 35?, When she failed to pull over after being requested to? Maybe when she took off after she pulled over the first time?
And, on what basis can you firmly state she was not drunk?
Do you even have any idea of how many cops are shot or killed over routine traffic stops?
When some one takes off after being pulled over, the cop has to assume the worse.
This woman F'd up big time. The cop, I would say over reacted, but not, IMHO, to the point of brutality.
Why did he only get 5 days of suspension? He should have been fired immediately.
Short is relative and he assigns motive for her reason for taking off. She was fleeing the cop (from his POV). That was where she blew it. She had no logical reason to flee after waiting.
The lack of common sense was on her part.
I don't know if the officer over reacted. But I do know one thing. Doing sixty three in a twenty five zone endangered people who had nothing to do with this woman's problem and she had no right to do that.
It doesn’t matter whether she waited three minutes or three seconds. When he walked to his car to run her plates and write her a ticket, he clearly didn’t give a damn whether her father was dying or not. It’s clear to me that he likely did believe her, that she really was coming to the hospital, and he *still* wanted to ticket her and run her plates (hoping for a warrant out on her so he could make the big bust? — yes, I know dispatchers, too, and you’d be surprised how many officers here pull people over for literally anything they can think of just so they can run the plates). Either way, if he believed her it only proves the point — he was bereft of all humanity. Write the ticket, maybe find a warrant, and get the bust. “TEACH THAT SPEEDER A LESSON, DAMMIT! DOES SHE THINK SHE’S SPECIAL?” I know the type — I’ve met the type, many times (not as someone pulled over but simply because I know quite a few officers). Someone who had enough sense to see that she was hurrying to the hospital might have let her off with a warning — but I guess teaching people a lesson is more important than having any humanity anymore.
Not clear why the woman’s father was driving himself to the hospital while having a heart attack. I can’t really blame the officer for being skeptical, and going 63 in a 35 zone is posing a serious risk to other motorists and pedestrians. It’s nice she cared so much about her father, but there’s really not much she could have done to speed his arrival at the hospital, and it’s not worth risking running down some kid crossing the street or causing a serious vehicle collision to get to the hospital a few minutes earlier.
My son is a deputy and he tells how appalled he was the first few times he saw himself on tapes from the camcorder in his car! He said he had no idea how curt he came across or how impolite he was when looking at it from a third-party perspective.
Doing 63 mph in a 35 mph zone is wrong, period. There are exceptions and one of them is when the person exceeding the speed limit, or otherwise disregard traffic laws, is responding to an emergency and using lights and siren to warn other drivers.
Some seem to have missed that part - she was frantic to find out if he even made it there!
re: BTW, ambulances have no legal right to speed, even if they have someone dying in the back.
Are you sure?
I will await a few more facts to become public, before I firmly express a considered opinion on this matter.
You’ve entirely missed my point. She wasn’t lying, as we know, but the point is that, in the remote possibility that she was, the harm done to society was nil. In life lying is only rarely okay (e.g. to preserve someone’s feelings), but that’s not the point. The point here is that there was a clear upside to showing some compassion and the downside on the off chance that she had lied about going to the hospital was virtually nothing. In even a cold-blooded calculation of one vs. the other, I would hope that compassion would win out. Guess I’m wrong.
LOL
Now that is excessive!
See post #17.
I’m a great fan of creative use of the English language :^)
I’m thinking calling the hospital’s emergency room might be a better way to find out, than zooming through a 35 mph zone at 63, and being uncooperative with a police officer who tries to stop that dangerous activity. If she knew more or less what route he was taking, and learned that he hadn’t reached the hospital, the hospital could have sent an ambulance along his route quickly, and he could have gotten medical help as soon as he was found. What was she going to do if she found him stopped or crashed along the way? Call for an ambulance, I imagine. But people don’t always think clearly when they’re upset about something like this, and letting her off the hook was the right thing to do. I’m not sure the police officer shouldn’t have been let off too, but I haven’t watched the video. If the level of force he used would have been deemed inappropriate even if it HAD turned out she’d been lying, then he deserved the suspension.
In any case how hard is it going to be to first find if her father has been admitted, or has collapsed in the parking lot? And then charge her.
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