The sad truth is, law enforcement officers in every state in the Union have been using Gestapo tactics to arrest, harass, beat, kick, and kill U.S. citizens for years.
Republished with permission from Lucian K. Truscott IV
I’ve been doing something at night after I get in bed that I wouldn’t recommend to anyone with a sane synapse in their head. I have been watching YouTube videos of traffic stops by police. Dozens of them. No, hundreds. They are, in a word, addictive.
Cell phones and police body cameras have made this phenomenon possible. For the most part, the videos show what appears to be police misconduct. An officer will turn on the lights of his patrol car and pull an alleged offender to the side of the road. The offense can be anything from speeding, to failure to signal a turn, to failure to stop at a light or stop sign, to not having a current registration sticker in the window of a car.
The officer approaches the side of the car and asks to see the driver’s license and registration and insurance. Sometimes the officer will approach a car parked on the side of the street, or a car in line at a fast food drive-through, and ask for the same documents. Sometimes, the driver who is sitting in a stopped car will ask why he has to provide these documents when he or she has not committed a traffic offense. The police officer usually persists, telling the driver he or she must produce identification on demand.
Sometimes the drivers are aware of laws on the books or court decisions that say you don’t have to produce identification on demand when you are not accused of a crime. That doesn’t work to defuse the situation.
This is what happens in those videos, over and over again. The officer says “Get out of the car!” or “Get out of the fucking car.” When the drivers don’t act fast enough to exit the car, the officer opens the door and forcibly drags them out of the car and throws them on the ground.
These are very violent confrontations. Sometimes, the driver films it on their own cell phone. Sometimes, it is filmed by a passenger with a cell phone. Often, the film from a police body cam emerges during a lawsuit against the officer for excessive use of force.
When it turns out that the driver has warrants, he or she will often attempt to flee the scene of the traffic stop. I have watched multiple videos where the officer making the stop shoots at the fleeing car.
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Lucian K. Truscott IV, a graduate of West Point, has had a 50-year career as a journalist, novelist and screenwriter. He has covered stories such as Watergate, the Stonewall riots and wars in Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan. He is also the author of five bestselling novels and several unsuccessful motion pictures. He has three children, lives in rural Pennsylvania and spends his time Worrying About the State of Our Nation and madly scribbling in a so-far fruitless attempt to Make Things Better.
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