Posted on 02/04/2009 1:31:48 PM PST by Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus
More than a month after Sam Salter wound up in the Ramsey County jail for two nights, the 40-year-old adjunct college instructor from Hudson, Wis., is still fuming. "You feel totally helpless," he said.
At the end of a New Year's Eve traffic stop on Interstate 94 in St. Paul, State Patrol Sgt. Carrie Rindal rammed Salter's 2001 Toyota Sienna van, causing $1,500 damage to his vehicle, and arrested him at gunpoint while his three children, ages 2, 3 and 6, sat in the van. His wife had to pick up the kids as he was taken to jail.
Rindal said Salter was attempting to flee. He said he was merely looking for a safe place to pull over.
The Ramsey County attorney's office declined to charge Salter after reviewing the evidence, including a video of the stop. "It was our belief there was insufficient evidence to prove that the suspect was knowingly fleeing police, and that is what he had been arrested for," said Paul Gustafson, a county attorney spokesman.
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
Word to the cop-apologists on FR: Get rid of the Blue Wall, or you'll have no respect at all.
Not to be sexist, sometimes the women cops are the worst, because they seem to have large chips on their shoulders.
Cops as a group suck because of this one thing, circle the wagon no cop is dirty they absolutely refuse to police each other.
...two sets of rule books...
one for the ubermenschen
and one for the untermenschen.
chauvinist pig!! heheheheeeee1
You see blue lights and you pull over. That spot right there is really good. You don’t need to hunt for a better space because they are all the same.
If you need help, practice with a friend.
Agreed...
Cops that engage in this is the manifestation of a government out of control...
I’ve got to ask, what are you gonna do when the messiah tells you to take our guns? How snarky are you going to be, then?
Sounds like he made the first mistake by not pulling over within a few hundred yards. However she overreacted in my opinion. He deserves reasonable compensation and she deserves a fitting repremand.
That said I’m not going to go off on some nutjob rant about stormtroopers or anything.
Everyone knows that you pull over right away and you stay in the car.
Otherwise, the cops think you’re planning to shoot them.
Sorry but you are 100% wrong about that. That is exactly how cops get killed when people immediately pull over where there is inadequate room on the shoulder or traffic is too heavy in that location. Every time some cop gets killed that way, the public is reminded to drive to a safe location before pulling over.
“Cops as a group suck because of this one thing, circle the wagon no cop is dirty they absolutely refuse to police each other.”
It’s not that they refuse to police each other, it’s because the good ones want to return to their wife and kids at the end of their shift.
If the good ones were to drop a dime on the few rotten ones then back up may be a little late in coming when it’s really needed, or they’ll look the other way and allow some street thug to just shoot and kill the dime dropper.
But I guess a concept such as that is too simple for those who automatically assume that all cops are dirty.
The sow should be cited for unnecessarilly damaging the van as well as her police cruiser. Ramming is something which should be reserved for suspected felons or people presenting a clear and immediate danger. A man in a van with his wife and tots who made a freaking improper lane change does not fit either category.
Ramming a car full or small kids... sounds like a great way to get shot. A lot.
I get really tired of the ‘I’m as tough as the boys’ routine.
They typically have horrible attitudes.
Plus, ossifer Carrie Rindal is an ugly bull dyke who hates men and kids.
Actually, if there isn’t a good place to pull over you turn your hazard lights on, and you slow down until you can find a good safe place.
They will launch an investigation by an attorney working for the department of public safety... lol
Cops are Cops. Good, bad, indifferent. They are people. The root cause is that we have empowered the police, through our elected representatives to pull people over. It’s really that simple. If “you people” would quit empowering your government we would not be having this problem. Seat belt laws. Helmet Laws. Cell Phone laws. Speed enforcement for a law created by a traffic engineer 20 years ago instead of driving for conditions. You people want an armed, dangerous, and plentiful police force. So that’s what you get. This poor sap just got caught up in “you people” and your desire to control other peoples behavior. “You People” decided long before I was born to make traffic laws a matter of social contract in order to circumvent normal due process. Hence we all drive in an adversarial environment with one eye on the speedometer and the other on the look out for LEO.
If you want to get rid of the adversarial relationship tough luck, cause that’s what your neighbors demand. Just wait as your neighbors get irritated about something else they see happen, and agitate for yet another new law to be imposed on their neighbors at the point of a gun. Most people on FR are standing in line waiting to add new and exciting means of extracting money and good behavior from fellow citizens at the point of a gun. Cause once the mechanism is in place to impose on fellow citizens their really is no end to what you can do with a a cop, a judge and a city council.
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