You’re right. There isn’t any indication what the officer thought about the cig either way. He may of thought it a threat or an interference to his duty or he may have just been a jerk. Either way, it doesn’t matter. He gave her a lawful order, which she refused. Her refusal of a lawful order is why he told her to exit the vehicle. She refused that lawful order as well, which escalated the situation. He handled is poorly, but was within his authority. His reasoning is anybody’s guess, but his actions were fully legal, although bad policy.
I think both sides were wrong, but the cop was in the greater wrong. He was trying to provoke a confrontation.
1. Pulling over a driver for not using lights is ridiculous. Why even bother? Isn’t there other , more pressing tasks this cop could do? Like actually fight crime?
2. In no way did this woman sound impaired when she was talking. There was no justification for trying to prove she was under the influence.
3. When he gave her the warning, he should have ended the interaction. Asking her if she was irritated was a provocation.
4. When she told him why she was irritated, he made a snarky verbal response in turn.
5. He then asks her to put out her cig, way beyond the time this interaction should have ended.
She then became in the wrong by refusing to get out of the car.The request to get out of the car was out of line, but at that point she should have realized she was dealing with a power hungry cop, complied, and fought this in court. I find it very interesting that the alleged physical altercation was out of camera range, which I suspect was a deliberate move by the cop. So now, after seeing this cops prior behavior, I would not believe anything he said.