Tasered over speeding ticket
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Please reference where they claimed this. And what do they claim was edited out? The only obvious gap was the period from when the officer returned to his car to write the ticket and approached the SUV a second time. Over a million people have viewed the video including many UHP and many on their side, any other editing would be uncovered.
In any event, UHP has the original tape if they think it shows something different.
The source of the information is local tv/radio news. They made no reference to what material was edited, only that the tape was incomplete.
The UHP has completed their investigation and they uphold the officer's actions. They announced it late this afternoon (Friday). They have invited the State Attorney General's office to review their investigation and conclusions, but as far as they are concerned, the matter is closed.
Bottom line: If you are going to speed in Utah, it would be wise to sign your ticket and hold your arguments for the court room.
Art
Of course the tape is incomplete. As I said, it clearly skips the 10 minutes where the officer sits in his car and writes a ticket, would be a waste of bandwidth and bore everyone to tears. That's not the same thing as doctoring the tape to misrepresent what happened.
The matter is far from closed, I guarantee you. They want it to be closed which is why they will probably drop the ticket in January rather than let it go to jury trial where the officer would have to appear and testify.
The matter is far from closed, I guarantee you. They want it to be closed which is why they will probably drop the ticket in January rather than let it go to jury trial where the officer would have to appear and testify.
It was not my intent to imply that the tape was somehow altered. One of the normal sequences is for the officer conducting the stop to inquire about wants, warrants, or other pertinent information. The information produced as a result, could conceivably have had a bearing on the officers subsequent actions. For example (and I have no reason to suspect that this is true, it just an example) if the speeder had a history of resisting arrest, fleeing, or combative behavior, the officer would probably be less tolerant of anything suggesting that was about to happen. With the edited tape, you don't have access to all the data.
I only said that the official inquiry was complete and closed. And I don't think the speeding ticket hearing is of any consequence. There is no jury. It is a justice court with one judge. For any consequential legal action, I think the guy who got tazed would have to file a civil law suit. But I am not a lawyer. Someone stick a pin in H2Andy. This is his kind of stuff.
Art
Wouldn't be the first time I lost a bet, but its still seems fishy to me. What was the result of the investigation, how did the officer's dash tape get on youtube? I am still schocked to see him do a vehicle approach that way.
Caver95
Contributor
Videos are a good thing for both parties. I have a really good friend( cop) who is being sued by some scumbag, had a camera been in his car at the time it would be a non issue. Lesson here is dont go to utah.
It's definitely a real incident so the only way it is a setup is either the cop is in on it (unlikely) or the cop has a rep and the driver knew he could set him off easily.
The tape was obtained by the ticketed driver under open records request. I'm surprised they just give you the tape there. An ex-girlfriend got a DUI a long time ago and first thing her lawyer wanted to do was see the tapes of the stop and the booking. But as I recall, you had to go to the police station and sit in a little room with a TV where you had a remote to start/stop/rewind/etc. but you had no access to the tape itself and it was not allowed to leave the premises.
The officer is an idiot. Working with unhappy campers is part of the job and the officer needs to know how to deal with it short of whipping out the tazer with the cuffs before he even informs the guy what is happening. Tazers fall into a "less lethal" category - they are not a non-violent way to resolve a situation and represent a significant escalation of force.
The officer did check for wants and warrants (the edited part once he returned to the car with the registration. So he did know that the guy was not wanted and that this was only about a speeding ticket. In light of that he should have answered the suspect's question and given him his options. 1. sign the ticket or 2. show up in court on the appointed date. Fankly I don't think signing the ticket is generally required on any offense that does not require a mandatory court appearance - and in cases where the person fails to appear for this type of offense, a bench warrant would be issued and no real effort would be made to go find him, he would just be subject to arrest on the outstanding warrant the next time he came in contact with an LEO. For offenses such as excessive speeding way over the limit, reckless driving, etc, a signature may be required in some jurisdictions to avoid holding the person prior to the appearance.
My thoughts are that the suspect was guilty of was the officer perceived offense of "contempt of cop" which basically equates to the cop defending his bruised ego by insisting on controlling a situation that required no real control other than showing some minimal respect to the suspect, advising him of what ocurred and giving him some options prior to sending him on his way. Tazering him was an option only after the officer allowed the situation to get totally out of hand and in fact even contributed to the escalation of the situation.
My first thought after watching the whole thing was "training video" for several reasons:
1. Procedure sucks from the start - He does not run the plates prior to approaching the car and is therefore potentially ignorant of any possible wants related to the vehicle. He is a highway patrolman who by definition is alone and several minutes way from any backup.
2. He also should have offset the patrol car slightly farther into the lane of traffic to give himself a bit more protection from traffic - which as it developed would have also reduced the threat to the tazer victim who got left in the vicinity of the fog line - not real clear on which side. Had he fallen differently at an an inopportune time, he coudl have fallen in front of a passing vehicle.
3. He then approaches the car totally unprepared for a potentially violent response from a totally unknown suspect. He literally saunters up to the car and presents himself at the window as a target. Really dumb. If I remember correctly, he even places his hands/arms inside the window at one point while he more or less gets in the driver's face, leaving himself at extreme risk to be restrained and/or shot.
4. He does not ask the suspect to accompany him to his patrol car and then follow the suspect back to the car to question/cite the man in a more controlled environment. That in and of itself would have resovled a lot as it would have taken it from a roadside argument in front of the significant other to a private and controlled discussion at the vehicle.
5. Then procedure gets worse. When he decides to arrest the suspect (a poor choice that at best will consume a half day of tansport and paperwork for an insignificant offense), he asks him to hop out of the car and then walks back to his car with his back to the suspect - who if he wanted to would have had ample opportunity to shoot the officer. This also speaks to the fact that the officer was not feeling threatened at all in the situation (which makes the next action far less justifyable).
6. He then has the tazer out and ready to use before even advising the suspect of what is occurring. In my opinion, the suspect's response is not totally unexpected as he is in the middle of nowhere in Utah with his pregnant wife confronted with a jerk with a haircut that says "I am an **********" and an attitude to match who is now pointing a taser at him over a speeding ticket. The thought that the officer may not be legitimate and/or is unbalanced or dangerous would be within the realm of reason in that stressful situation.
7. The after tazering the suspect, the officer then totally loses control of the situation by sandwiching himself between the two vehicles where the passenger could have slid into the driver's seat (tinted rear window preventing observation of this) and run him over (note the tail lights during the video - this vehicle is not completely dead or inoperable.) Alternatively she could have left the vehicle armed and with good cover, placing him in a position where he is standing between two suspects who are 90 degrees apart while he is still holding his now inadequate and once fired tazer. Had either of these people been so inclined, he'd be dead.
One of the things that gets officers killed in domestic disputes, is that they are emotionally charged, another is that no matter how mad a person is at an SO, they are often more upset at the officer for arresting SO with the result that the domestic violence victim the officer is trying to protect then becomes a threat to the officer. Both of these elements (emtionally charged situation, officer arresting the SO) are present, indicating a potentially dangerous situation that the officer not only failed to recognize but created.
8. He then loses control again by leaving mr. tazer victim (who by this time is now cuffed but fully recovered on the ground and out of sight) while he goes to argue with the significant other. He again presents himself as a target on the passenger side. While arguing there, Mr. Tazer victim approaches him from behind sandwiching him between two suspects, 1 potentially armed, nearly 180 degres apart. So of course he turns his back on a potentially armed suspect to address the cuffed suspect. Really stupid. The suspect is also reasonably skinny and with some flexiility, could have gotten his cuffed hands in front of him while the officer was both distracted and out of sight and been much more of a threat.
Instead, the officer should have taken the cuffed suspect around the back of the car as soon as he cuffed him to place him in the car where he would be fully under control and in the process keeping the car and door between himself and passenger while keeping both in view to the maximum extent possible.
9. He then conducts a brief but still illegal search of the vehicle. He states he needs to search the car, but gets neither the driver or passenger's permission. At that point there was no need to search the vehicle, let alone partially enter it to do so and he would not have been able to use anything he found anyway. The vehicle was not going to be towed and did not require any inventory search and he had no probable casues to suspect drugs, alcohol or weapons at that point.
10. My personal favorite is when backup from another department (different uniform) finally arrives, he relates a story regarding the tazering where the order of events is distinctly at odds with the video - leaving out the "I whipped around with my tazer out and pointed at the suspect before he even had time to respond to my near simulataneous request to surrender and submit" part. The officer was clearly already in full CYA mode and knows he screwed up.
My thoughts are that the use of the tazer may be considered borderline legitimate, depending on department protocols, if you view it as a fleeing suspect issue. But the guy is a speeder who has been established as someone who is not wanted so the larger issues are the events that led up to the tazer use and whether the officer could have avoided the use of force through better procedure. My guess is they will find it as a legitimate use of force in order to avoid admitting fault for civil suit purposes, but that officer bad haircut will have a short career with the UHP.
With regard to the suspect, he is equally stupid. I don't argue with highway patrolmen, even when they are wrong. It is bad enough making a traffic stop 2 minutes from backup, to do it in the middle of nowhere places them under a great deal of stress.
But he does perhaps have a legitimate beef with not knowing what he did. He was obviously following the patrol car which gradually pulled over onto the shoulder at a point where the patrol car was actually in front of the temporary speed limit sign. It is very plausible the suspect never saw it. Since he was following the patrol car, it is not known if he was approaching it rapidly or staying even with it. In the former case, the officer would know the suspect was speeding but would be guestimating how much. In the latter, if the officer was traveling at the same speed, he would know the speed, but would be equally guilty of speeding and would be creating the impression that the speed used was legal to the following motorist. There is some room for credibility for the motorist not knowing he was speeding and the whole thing just screams that a warning may have been a more appropriate response as the ticket would be problematic in court.
So while it apparently was not designed as a training video, I would be hard pressed to construct a better one and I bet after the lawsuit is settled, it becomes one.
The officer did check for wants and warrants (the edited part once he returned to the car with the registration. So he did know that the guy was not wanted and that this was only about a speeding ticket. In light of that he should have answered the suspect's question and given him his options. 1. sign the ticket or 2. show up in court on the appointed date. Fankly I don't think signing the ticket is generally required on any offense that does not require a mandatory court appearance - and in cases where the person fails to appear for this type of offense, a bench warrant would be issued and no real effort would be made to go find him, he would just be subject to arrest on the outstanding warrant the next time he came in contact with an LEO. For offenses such as excessive speeding way over the limit, reckless driving, etc, a signature may be required in some jurisdictions to avoid holding the person prior to the appearance.
My thoughts are that the suspect was guilty of was the officer perceived offense of "contempt of cop" which basically equates to the cop defending his bruised ego by insisting on controlling a situation that required no real control other than showing some minimal respect to the suspect, advising him of what ocurred and giving him some options prior to sending him on his way. Tazering him was an option only after the officer allowed the situation to get totally out of hand and in fact even contributed to the escalation of the situation.
My first thought after watching the whole thing was "training video" for several reasons:
1. Procedure sucks from the start - He does not run the plates prior to approaching the car and is therefore potentially ignorant of any possible wants related to the vehicle. He is a highway patrolman who by definition is alone and several minutes way from any backup.
2. He also should have offset the patrol car slightly farther into the lane of traffic to give himself a bit more protection from traffic - which as it developed would have also reduced the threat to the tazer victim who got left in the vicinity of the fog line - not real clear on which side. Had he fallen differently at an an inopportune time, he coudl have fallen in front of a passing vehicle.
3. He then approaches the car totally unprepared for a potentially violent response from a totally unknown suspect. He literally saunters up to the car and presents himself at the window as a target. Really dumb. If I remember correctly, he even places his hands/arms inside the window at one point while he more or less gets in the driver's face, leaving himself at extreme risk to be restrained and/or shot.
4. He does not ask the suspect to accompany him to his patrol car and then follow the suspect back to the car to question/cite the man in a more controlled environment. That in and of itself would have resovled a lot as it would have taken it from a roadside argument in front of the significant other to a private and controlled discussion at the vehicle.
5. Then procedure gets worse. When he decides to arrest the suspect (a poor choice that at best will consume a half day of tansport and paperwork for an insignificant offense), he asks him to hop out of the car and then walks back to his car with his back to the suspect - who if he wanted to would have had ample opportunity to shoot the officer. This also speaks to the fact that the officer was not feeling threatened at all in the situation (which makes the next action far less justifyable).
6. He then has the tazer out and ready to use before even advising the suspect of what is occurring. In my opinion, the suspect's response is not totally unexpected as he is in the middle of nowhere in Utah with his pregnant wife confronted with a jerk with a haircut that says "I am an **********" and an attitude to match who is now pointing a taser at him over a speeding ticket. The thought that the officer may not be legitimate and/or is unbalanced or dangerous would be within the realm of reason in that stressful situation.
7. The after tazering the suspect, the officer then totally loses control of the situation by sandwiching himself between the two vehicles where the passenger could have slid into the driver's seat (tinted rear window preventing observation of this) and run him over (note the tail lights during the video - this vehicle is not completely dead or inoperable.) Alternatively she could have left the vehicle armed and with good cover, placing him in a position where he is standing between two suspects who are 90 degrees apart while he is still holding his now inadequate and once fired tazer. Had either of these people been so inclined, he'd be dead.
One of the things that gets officers killed in domestic disputes, is that they are emotionally charged, another is that no matter how mad a person is at an SO, they are often more upset at the officer for arresting SO with the result that the domestic violence victim the officer is trying to protect then becomes a threat to the officer. Both of these elements (emtionally charged situation, officer arresting the SO) are present, indicating a potentially dangerous situation that the officer not only failed to recognize but created.
8. He then loses control again by leaving mr. tazer victim (who by this time is now cuffed but fully recovered on the ground and out of sight) while he goes to argue with the significant other. He again presents himself as a target on the passenger side. While arguing there, Mr. Tazer victim approaches him from behind sandwiching him between two suspects, 1 potentially armed, nearly 180 degres apart. So of course he turns his back on a potentially armed suspect to address the cuffed suspect. Really stupid. The suspect is also reasonably skinny and with some flexiility, could have gotten his cuffed hands in front of him while the officer was both distracted and out of sight and been much more of a threat.
Instead, the officer should have taken the cuffed suspect around the back of the car as soon as he cuffed him to place him in the car where he would be fully under control and in the process keeping the car and door between himself and passenger while keeping both in view to the maximum extent possible.
9. He then conducts a brief but still illegal search of the vehicle. He states he needs to search the car, but gets neither the driver or passenger's permission. At that point there was no need to search the vehicle, let alone partially enter it to do so and he would not have been able to use anything he found anyway. The vehicle was not going to be towed and did not require any inventory search and he had no probable casues to suspect drugs, alcohol or weapons at that point.
10. My personal favorite is when backup from another department (different uniform) finally arrives, he relates a story regarding the tazering where the order of events is distinctly at odds with the video - leaving out the "I whipped around with my tazer out and pointed at the suspect before he even had time to respond to my near simulataneous request to surrender and submit" part. The officer was clearly already in full CYA mode and knows he screwed up.
My thoughts are that the use of the tazer may be considered borderline legitimate, depending on department protocols, if you view it as a fleeing suspect issue. But the guy is a speeder who has been established as someone who is not wanted so the larger issues are the events that led up to the tazer use and whether the officer could have avoided the use of force through better procedure. My guess is they will find it as a legitimate use of force in order to avoid admitting fault for civil suit purposes, but that officer bad haircut will have a short career with the UHP.
With regard to the suspect, he is equally stupid. I don't argue with highway patrolmen, even when they are wrong. It is bad enough making a traffic stop 2 minutes from backup, to do it in the middle of nowhere places them under a great deal of stress.
But he does perhaps have a legitimate beef with not knowing what he did. He was obviously following the patrol car which gradually pulled over onto the shoulder at a point where the patrol car was actually in front of the temporary speed limit sign. It is very plausible the suspect never saw it. Since he was following the patrol car, it is not known if he was approaching it rapidly or staying even with it. In the former case, the officer would know the suspect was speeding but would be guestimating how much. In the latter, if the officer was traveling at the same speed, he would know the speed, but would be equally guilty of speeding and would be creating the impression that the speed used was legal to the following motorist. There is some room for credibility for the motorist not knowing he was speeding and the whole thing just screams that a warning may have been a more appropriate response as the ticket would be problematic in court.
So while it apparently was not designed as a training video, I would be hard pressed to construct a better one and I bet after the lawsuit is settled, it becomes one.
Aqua, I agree with your analysis almost completely. Only difference is I don't think he needed permission to search the car at that point. When you arrest the driver the vehicle is in custody as well. That's why he asked the wife later if she wanted to take possession of the vehicle. He could have towed it but I think he just wanted her out of there.
I agree there was 6 or 7 times where the officer put himself in a vulnerable position. The initial approach was likely complacency from making thousands of stops with nothing happening. The media aggregates stories so we hear daily of cops getting shot and cop shooting suspects. But most cops end their career having never fired their weapon or been fired upon. Another mistake was he never actually searched the suspect before putting him in the car, as far as I could see. I've seen cases where suspects had a weapon and managed to get it while in the back seat and shoot the cop in the back of the head.
It was odd how the video began with the cop in front of the driver. He was clearly making the stop before that 40mph sign but I think the officer said there was another one a half-mile back. Neither vehicle seemed to be going over 40mph on the video. Still, there are enough questions and variables that I expect the ticket will be dismissed.
The officer has been getting tons of hate mail and even death threats. The driver issued a statement to the media (sincere or not) asking people to stop it, that the officer has a life and a family and doesn't deserve to be threatened.
I agree there was 6 or 7 times where the officer put himself in a vulnerable position. The initial approach was likely complacency from making thousands of stops with nothing happening. The media aggregates stories so we hear daily of cops getting shot and cop shooting suspects. But most cops end their career having never fired their weapon or been fired upon. Another mistake was he never actually searched the suspect before putting him in the car, as far as I could see. I've seen cases where suspects had a weapon and managed to get it while in the back seat and shoot the cop in the back of the head.
It was odd how the video began with the cop in front of the driver. He was clearly making the stop before that 40mph sign but I think the officer said there was another one a half-mile back. Neither vehicle seemed to be going over 40mph on the video. Still, there are enough questions and variables that I expect the ticket will be dismissed.
The officer has been getting tons of hate mail and even death threats. The driver issued a statement to the media (sincere or not) asking people to stop it, that the officer has a life and a family and doesn't deserve to be threatened.
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