Posted on 11/22/2007 7:37:13 AM PST by Excuse_My_Bellicosity
“Multiple posters have stated they did not hear what you claim was said by the trooper. AFAIK, you are the only one who is making such a claim.”
My mistake. I did not hear the officer make that statement after he got the driver out of the vehicle.
Now, is it your belief that when an officer tells you “turn around and put your hands behind your back” that they must:
Be actually arresting you for a felony and reading you your Miranda rights?
They must make the statement “You are under arrest”, or you can ignore them and walk away?
That the officer has no right to place you in handcuffs unless he is arresting you, describes the charges to you, and follows your orders?
And people acting as if a bad attitude should never have a consequence? Try it at a drive-thru window or retail counter, and see what kind of service you get. Heck, try it at your kid's next parent/teacher conference. Then come back to FR and explain to us all that it makes no difference.
He was not told he was under arrest, that I could hear. He was told to turn around and put his hands behind his back. He did turn around, and put his hands by his pockets, a very natural position depending on one's arm length. The hand that is visible has a thumb hooked on the pocket. A relaxed if somewhat disrespect full posture, but hardly threatening. Granted he should not have strolled away, and he should have put his hands behind his back. But a "you're under arrest for" ??? Whatever it was, would have been quiet reasonable at that point, since up to not putting is hands behind his back, the subject had been as cooperative as the law requires. The detainee never raised his voice, never a move towards the officer or any move that could be interpreted as going for a weapon. He was not as cooperative as he could have been, but he was also not combative at all.
The prisoner was not secured and it was a very dangerous moment in an arrest. When his wife exited the vehicle and posed an unknown second threat, that delayed the cuffing process even more.
The guy had not been informed he was a prisoner, and wasn't really, at most he was a detainee. Since he had not been told he was under arrest.
Yes with a combative subject, those steps can after cuffing, but this guy was not combative. Not passive and totally cooperative, but not combative.
The wife did not exit the vehicle until after the guy was tazed. What would you expect her to do seeing her husband fall to the ground?
The guy wasn’t tazed for being a jerk, he was tazed because it was the least use of force reasonable for the arrest situation.
Funny then that he was tazed right after the second time the subject asked the officer what was wrong with him.
The tazer had no noticeable after effect on the suspect.
Other than knocking him to the ground you mean? That was desired affect was it not?
The real question is “how would the officer know?” He never clocked him and was unable to tell him how fast he was going.
“And, this cop picked the WRONG one.”
You just revealed yourself to everyone. Now I understand why you have been all over the multiple threads on this subject, and vehemently defending Massey, while attacking the ‘out of control pigs’ and any posters who watch the video and have their own opinion of what happened.
Some call you TIM?
What do others call you,.... Mr. Massey????
Don't insult Deputy Fife that way.
“I’d also like an answer to my previous question:”
I’d like answers to the dozen or so questions I’ve asked you.
I’ve been on FR a long time. I’ve seen your type of tactics before.
DEMAND others answer your questions, but never, ever answer theirs. Kinda like Hillary Clinton. It tells me they have ‘an agenda’.
Do you?
“No, I think he’s a rookie who didn’t know how to handle the traffic stop properly.”
Your thinker must be broken.
The officer in this case has 14 years on the force.
Not exactly what one would call a ROOKIE, is it?
Oops, you’re right. So it’s door #2: he got lax. That is really bad for a 14-year veteran and I feel stupid that I didn’t retain that when I read the article a day ago (the content of the video is a lot more focused on). If he can’t do better than that after 14 years then by all means can him.
As for all the screaming about suing the department into oblivion, no way. Good luck showing damages in civil court.
I completely forgot that. Sure enough, it’s in line #2 of the article. D’oh! 99% of the discussion has been the content of the video clip. That’s an explanation, not an excuse.
You know, something interesting occurred to me overnight. Massey’s supporters seem to be arguing that if he’d just been warned he was going to be tasered, he’d have calmed down right away and everything would have been spiffy. What seems a little bizarre about that assumption is that the guy is now saying he thought the taser was a gun. So... apparently they’re arguing that a guy who refused to calm down when held at gunpoint would have calmed down if he knew it was only a taser. H.o.k.a.y.y.y.
I hear you.
I admit that after I watched the video the first time, I started reading the posts, and due to the vicious attacks by posters on the officer, I started arguing back, and...
made some statements about things in the video that I thought I remembered, or that I felt were inferred by facial gestures or actions of the officer and driver.
What I DID NOT DO is watch the video with a CLOSED and already made up mind.
I have seen this many times. Posters will read the article (never the full article, just the part posted at the beginning of the thread), and will read only certain sentences that draw their attention. Also they will take a different interpretation of certain statements differently than say, You or I, based on their preconceived notions about the subject.
It is a human thing. We all have a tendency to do this.
It is very difficult to be impartial, totally open-minded, and get all the evidence before making a judgment.
I can usually tell those who try to remain open-minded vs. those who at totally CLOSED-MINDED and will never change.
The latter will never, ever, admit a mistake, or apologize if caught. (Kinda like the driver this thread is about)
It doesn't work that way anywhere in the world, private or government. Talk nice to anybody anywhere, you'll get different treatment than yelling and screaming. But the cops are one profession on planet earth where that's different? Yeah, right!
That's what the whole publicity campaign is about. They know the civil action is a long shot, so they're trying to scare the state into a settlement. They may discover they've just hardened their attitude with this ploy, though.
See, you dodged the questions again. Typical.
Tell me, what speed did the officer charge him with on the citation?
Did the officer have a radar gun in the car?
Don't know, but I'm pretty sure he had a speedometer in the car. Probably also knew that when you're chasing someone at the instant you start getting closer to them you can look at your speedometer and tell how fast they're going. That's just a guess, though.
I am not dodging any question buckoo. There was no speed on the citation that anyone knows about even the guy getting the ticket. It will be thrown out in court. You make bounds and leaps and I am merely repeating what the guy said in the video and in his interviews. It was 65, he was going 68 and the speeding infraction if you would call it that was prior to the sign that was marked 40MPH visibly in the video. The officer never clocked his speed. The officer in the video said there was another “sign” further back but the gentleman wasn’t buying it. He asked repeatedly for what speed he was going and what law he had broken. The officer never answered. His response was drastic escalation, thus he will lose his job and Utah will be a better place to drive in.
You make the assumptions and hyperbole, I just post the laws of Utah and the facts we gather in the information given us. When the internal investigation supports some of your wild wierd hypothesis then we will know for sure, right?
As of now, I see what I see, I hear what I hear and don’t have to resort to conjecture and wild assertions to make my point. I resort to posting the laws of Utah and analysis of the information given. Pretty cut and dry to me. Bad cop.
I would like to personally Thank You for being rational, intelligent, and admitting you missed something. We all make mistakes. We all are human.
Regardless to your choice of sides on this debate, I have much, much more respect for your replies because of your particular comment.
I think the key to WHY the officer decided he was going to place the driver in handcuffs and take him to jail was contained in the conversations during the earlier part of the video, where they were partially obscured by the traffic noise. We may never know what was actually said.
I can hear parts of that conversation, mostly the responses of the driver saying, “NO YOU CANT, NO YOU WONT”, back to the officer. So I wonder what the officer said to him to get that response?
We may never know.
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