Posted on 11/22/2013 12:29:43 PM PST by moonshinner_09
Mother of minivan of kids shot at by police speaks out against'terrifying individual' police officer
The mother who led New Mexico police on a dramatic chase that culminated in their shooting at the minivan she was driving with her children inside has spoken out about the incident. Calling one of police officers a 'terrifying individual,' Oriana Ferrell, 39, wrote in a letter penned from her prison cell last month and published in the Taos News yesterday that she drove away from police repeatedly to protect her children. 'A uniformed officer can shoot three bullets at my van and be considered to be “doing his job”, but my doing what I can to get my own children away from such a terrifying individual has been termed “child abuse” and “endangerment,” according to New Mexico law,' she wrote.
New Mexico State Police have opened an investigation into the conduct of the troopers - and driver Oriana Ferrell and her 14-year-old son are facing charges. Calling herself a 'peace officer,' Ferrell writes: 'As a single, African-American mother of five in this country, things are tough enough I should not have to endure harassment at the hands of someone who has been hired to protect the citizens of this land over an alleged “speeding offense.” No one should.'
The traffic stop took place south of Taos, New Mexico, on October 28 - but it sparked local outrage after the video from a state police dashboard camera went public. Footage shows the officer casually walk up to the vehicle and begin speaking with the driver. When the officer walks away, presumably to run the license and registration and decide whether to write a ticket, the van takes off.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Again: The officer was wrong to shoot. However, up to that point, the woman and her older son instigated and escalated the whole event. I too would like to know why she kept taking off and resisting the officers....
She is after whitey’s money now!
Drugs and paraphernalia in the van. Other articles casually mention it or bury it.
Bad shot placement ping...
Apparently it was because they had already ticketed her, but the choices were to pay on the spot or go see a judge at that very moment.
Sorry, no sale. She was speeding, stopped and then ran.
“That’s it: Having seen enough, the teen jumps out of the car to confront the officer”
typical behavior of black males
Panic makes folks do a lot of strange things.. Ask Harry Reid.
She didn’t have time for a cavity search and a colonostopy. :-)
She’s the one who escalated a simple traffic stop into something much worse. She put her children in danger, not the cops.
The “pay on the spot” is the killer ,, think of it from her side ,, the only reason small towns do that is because they are robbing people ... typically they do not report the ticket info and it doesn’t show up on your license ... this is done so that they get fewer complaints and they can continue thieving longer and longer ... decades of abuse ... if they followed the rules and reported the “infraction” (and driving 71 on a straight clear road through the friggin desert is not anything that should deserve a ticket) then there would be no reason for the pay now in cash scheme ,, they could ding your license with a suspension no matter what state you are from and get paid..
The cops are the thieves in this instance .
“As a single, African-American mother of five in this country, things are tough enough “
Boo intercoursing hoo. I was about to have sympathy for her when I read this.
I was stopped for speeding (48/30) in another state and taken to a local justice where I was given the choice of pleading guilty to the infraction or posting bail for a traffic hearing. The bail was the same amount as the ticket. I paid the fine and even though the state had a reciprocating agreement with my state the conviction never showed up on my driving record.
When I watched the video, I was appalled. She treated her kids as an excuse. She obviously thought nothing about what her actions and possible consequences would mean played out in front of the children. I can see why the shots were fired, not that I am convinced it was the best response. The other officers pulled up to see the thug son striking an officer. When they broke the window, they saw a toy gun in the car, but did not have time to identify it as a toy before she drove off. Everything she did made it worse.
New Mexico absolutely does not have a pay at the roadside option. That’s regular Mexico.
You have two options statewide. Sign a penalty assessment admitting guilt. You may then mail in the fine, pay on the courts website, etc. You risk getting an arrest warrant issued if you do not send it in within 30 days.
Option 2, see a judge. If you are from New Mexico, you get a court date. Otherwise, you must go meet a judge right then. You will probably be asked to post bond equal to the fine if you wish to set up a different court date.
But there is simply not an option to pay at roadside. The woman was an ass looking for a cause who lead a speeding chase through an area where she could have killed tourists, motorcyclists, bike riders, etc. Her kids are no more valuable than mine.
She could have signed the ticket with no danger. If she fled, she could have driven normally into town. She was the danger here. Not the guy going for her tires. At the 2nd stop, it would have been better to deploy a spikebelt in front of her van though. She had already fled once.
New Mexico 518? Not straight and at a max elevation of 9700' not desert either. There's not much of it I'd drive at 70 in my Honda S2000, much less a minivan full of kids.
There is no pay on the spot in New Mexico. None whatsoever. And state police would be the last doing it there.
It’s a choice. Sign that you admit guilt and send in the fine. Or sign that you opt to fight it in court. If you are from out of state, you’ll have to see a judge and post a bond. I personally think that system is unreasonable. In this highly mobile society, everyone should get the exact same court date options. That’s a court rule from another era when some grapes of wrath type would never show for court, and never come back to face a charge.
But nobody is collecting cash on the side of the road. Especially state troopers, on camera, with backup. Those guys are nasty jerks, but they are straight arrows and prigs about rules, like Game Wardens.
Hand over the S2000 , you’re wasting it .. I’ve gone over that in many a parking lot (solo2 in a GTI).
My sister (with a minivan filled with kids) was stopped once and told to pay on the spot and was absolutely convinced from the encounter that it was a dirty or fake cop engaged in highway robbery and was horribly frightened by the whole thing. She was very frightened of the officer’s aggressive insistence on immediate payment.
Since we can’t hear the verbal exchange at the initial encounter, is it possible that this women was similarly freaked out and that is why she took off the first time?
(I realized that the cops allege drugs and bongs were found in the car, but cops alos lie and plant evidence. And after the hot mess this stop turned into, they would be very motivated to “find” evidence that would make the lady appear to be a drug addled nutcase, so I’m not taking the alleged drugs at face value until more is known about this family).
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