I think you're right. And since I made a list of the things the driver did to escalate the situation, it's fair to say that the cop could've handled things more professionally. FR is full of people flying off the handle and screaming "power-drunk psycho-cop". No, I think he's a rookie who didn't know how to handle the traffic stop properly.
Whenever I've been stopped, the officer always said to me real business-like, "The reason I pulled you over is...." If a person starts arguing the ticket right off the bat, the way to handle it is to tell him, "We'll get to that in a minute. First off, I need your license/registration, then I'm going to step back to my car for a few minutes. When I come back, we can talk about this more." Instead, the officer sidles up to the guy's car and says, "You were going kinda fast." He should not have engaged the driver's and wife's arguing at that point, because now they're controlling the situation.
When pulling the guy out of the car, he should've said something more professional than, "Why don't you hop on out of there?" While the guy was out of the car and started acting up, the cop would've done better to explain to him that he's arrestable for not signing the ticket and disorderly conduct and said, "Look, just be cool. Let's keep this on the level of a traffic ticket instead of an arrest. If you really disagree with the ticket, traffic court is the place to argue it."
The cop could've said and done more things to diffuse the situation. ("If you be cool and listen for a minute, XYZ will happen. If you don't calm down, XYZ can happen.") Even if it didn't work, it would cover him later.
Most of the posters here have a fetish for screaming about power-drunk psycho-cops. I've seen cops that fit this category, this one doesn't qualify. His main problem is that he lost control of the situation because he engaged in extraneous conversation that he shouldn't have and he should've done better at explaining consequences ("you're arrestable if you don't sign", "get your hands away from your pockets", "stay cool or you can be arrested for disorderly conduct", etc). That's hard to do when you have a rambler who won't shut up long enough to take a breath (and for all his talk after-the-fact about being scared for his wife and kid, he sure did everything he could to escalate the situation), but the cop showed a pretty poor effort. That's a rookie being allowed to solo too soon or a veteran who's getting apathetic or burned-out. If the cop were half as psycho as people on this thread are screaming about, he would've thrown the guy to the ground when he got up after being cuffed and the guy's wife would've hit the ground hard when she came out of the car.
Both parties screwed up, so people shouldn't make this to be more than what it is. I consider the use of SWAT teams to serve routine warrants, DUI and license checkpoints in direct violation of the 4th amendment, cops pulling over people at random, cops wrongfully confiscating legally carried firearms and refusing to give them back, and harassment of citizens legally carrying firearms to be much bigger issues. Funny how those threads get 10 hits and this one gets 400.
Not so. Snipped from the article:
"... Trooper John Gardner - a 14-year UHP veteran..."
“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?
Good post.
I've been in nearly that same situation. I thought the low speed zone through a small town, ended before it actually did. The officer, a county deputy IIRC, explained where it it did end. I explained why the address on my DL did not match that on the vehicle's registration. (I lived in San Antonio, my wife in North Texas, but when I bought the vehicle I was on temporary assignment in OK City, so we registered the vehicle at the North Texas address, since the "expatriot" period was short, I had not updated the address on the DL, even though I did move out of my apartment in SA, and later moved into a different complex when I returned to the Alamo City.) I was polite, the officer was polite. The officer did not mind me explaining my view of the situation. He gave me a warning ticket and I went on my way. Oh I also kept my hands on the wheel, until I asked and was given the go ahead to get my insurance certificate out of the seat back pocket where I kept it. I don't recall if that was before or after I also had a CHL, which is tied to the DL record, which I found out for certain last Monday when I renewed the DL, and the clerk verfied that I had a CHL.
Both the officer and the subject bear some responsibility for this situation, but the officer is supposed to be the professional. Most I've come in contact, even the guy running a notorious speed trap that has since been done away with by the state, have been polite and respectful. I had a trunk full of guns on that speed trap stop, but he only asked if I had guns in the back seat, which is all I told him about. That was the second time I was stopped with guns in the trunk, and I only had a couple really, but the first time we'd been out shooting at "the farm" and had a bunch, most of which were not even mine, not that it would matter, that state has no registration nor does Texas. I later found out that the local relatives considered that deputy to be of the Deputy Dawg variety, and probably the least bright and with the most "attitude" of all the county's deputies. It helps that I keep my military ID, on the "flipper" covering my DL.