Police Just Doing Their Job

Last Friday night, a Missouri citizen had an encounter with a dangerous policeman. Nothing out of the ordinary, eh? What makes this time different is that this citizen claims to have previously been assaulted by a police officer, which led him to install video cameras with audio in his car. Here is the video, as well as a transcript of the incident.

The newspaper video/transcript of incident.

I found the policeman’s words and actions to be frightening. Please watch the video. A few comments I wanted to make:

1) The citizen knows his rights, did nothing illegal, and is calm and honest with the officer. None of this helps avoid the cop’s rage. In fact, it is when the citizen accurately claims his rights that upsets the officer the most.

2) Policemen are allowed to stop and question people who are ‘suspicious’. the policeman uses this term very broadly, so that anybody in that situation would have to show their papers.

3) The policeman shows an extreme willingness to lie about anything. It appears that his only goal is to show his power by frightening this guy. “Respect my authority!” as Cartman would say.

4) The cop uses a ‘catch22’ argument.He states that if someone uses their 5th amendment right to not incriminate themselves, they are by definition, impeding a police officer’s investigation – a crime. In the officer’s mind, all applications of the 5th amendment to the constitution are illegal.

5) Some of the policeman’s arguments seem to be well planned out in advance. For example, he knows immediately there are 9 reasons to arrest an innocent person.

6) Police are public officers who act this way only because the public tolerates it. Find out how your local representatives feel about the issues, and if they are for a police state – vote them out of office.