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pws wrote:

Snelling was pulled-over for a minor issue; my guess
is that the missing rear license-plate was the red flag
that led to the traffic-stop.  That's a chicken-sh*t
ticket, and Corporal O'Connor was gratuitously aggressive
but it sure looks like a legitimate traffic-stop and Snelling
started breaking the bigger rules from the very get-go:

#1. Never argue with the officer.  You will *never* win.
     Let the officer ask the questions.
#2. Never physically face-off an officer.  It scares them.
#3. Never do both of the above at the same time; it makes the
     officer suspect a physical altercation is imminent, which
     *really* scares them.
#4. Never, ever, do the above when the officer is already raising
     his voice at you.

As it stands, O'Connor was punished and Snelling got an apology.
That's just the P.R. machine in action there; it would seem that
O'Connor could and should have handled that traffic-stop much
more smoothly, but Snelling basically provoked a confrontation
with O'Connor.

Dana

Dana Myers wrote:

Of course it is never a good idea to argue with or fight them, but I
have to disagree with the rest. That officer caused the problem to start
in the first place with his unwarranted aggression.

I think that he should not only have been fired, but also charged with
assault and battery with additional penalties imposed because he did the
crimes while on the job as a police officer. I am talking about a number
of years in jail, and a fat settlement for Snelling to help stop this
crap from happening.

The police force here was once a very decent organization that
interacted pretty well with the community. That is a thing that is now
long past.

Pat

pws wrote:

The officer's aggression was initially a raised "enforcement"
voice.  That's hardly enough to start a problem.  Snelling started
the problem when he indignantly refused to comply with the officer's
direction in a timely fashion.


Snelling was acting in an aggressive way, too.  He was arguing with
the officer, and when he got out of the car, stepped toward the
officer rather than away from the officer and to the rear of the car.
O'Connor's response was harsh but hardly criminal; Snelling's behavior
was (perhaps unintentionally) threatening the officer.


I'll whole-heartedly agree that O'Connor's style is terrible from
a community-policing perspective, but it wasn't actually criminal.

Dana

I don't see how, did we watch the same video?  Snelling said, "OK, let
me get it."

The video makes it appear that every single move the officer made was
umprovoked and improper for the circumstances, he should be fired.







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XS11E wrote:


Go XS11E! Nice to have some support. There was a "whoa, whoa, whoa" in
there.
That certainly is enough to justify shooting potentially lethal barbed
electrical probes into a person's chest.

We are almost guaranteed to hear about how they have a thankless job and
all of that. It is also a job that they signed on for and even received
some small amount of training to achieve.

Just the way he casually says. "I have one tased" is very disturbing.
The police are using this toy of their's way too indiscriminately.

The idiot is also standing in front of his car while traffic is whizzing
by, and the person on the ground is a guaranteed meat sandwich if the
officer's car is rear-ended. Good going APD!

Pat

XS11E wrote:

We watched the same video.  Snelling did not initially offer to get
his license out; he appears to initially demand to know why he was
pulled over.  Then, instead of getting his license out, he complained
at the officer for "yelling" at him.  Snelling wasn't cooperating,
and wasn't just being slow in cooperating.  Snelling was arguing
instead of complying.  A police officer will see that as provocative.


When Snelling stepped toward the officer rather than away (as
instructed), the officer was fully within rights to use force to
subdue Snelling.  Ugly, harsh, but true, as painful as it is to
watch.

Dana

I'm outraged that you're against someone telling you that you should be
outraged and you should be outraged too! ;-)



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Dana Myers wrote:

<snip>


That *is* the best way to avoid a ticket, but it's alarmingly close to
saying that one should expect to be tased if they dare question a police
officer on the side of the road.

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tooloud
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tooloud wrote:


Exactly, and I am not suggesting that someone fight it out with them,
just watch an episode of "Cops" and you will see the result of that.

The increased cameras, both on the cruisers and everywhere else, should
at least help continue to bring more attention to travesties of justice
against citizens such as was shown in the video.

I am not even anti-police, just very much against unnecessarily abusive
police like the officer that was shown.

A high-level Austin police commander gives me his house keys and has me
take care of his pets when he travels, and I have gotten along well with
several cops that worked moonlight as security where I was employed.

The officer shown in the video is an example of what needs to be removed
from the force. I think that the term is "bad apple".

Pat