Article from Reason by Robby Soave.
A police officer in a small Arkansas town pulled a man over for driving suspiciously near some railroad tracks. The driver—Adam Finley—turned out to be a railroad employee just doing his job.
Here’s what happened next, as evidenced by video footage of the encounter. Even though the cop, Matthew Mercado, had no reason whatsoever to escalate matters, he ordered Finley out of the car, became aggressive with him, shoved him against the car door, handcuffed him, swore at him, and threatened to use a taser on him.
Meanwhile, Finley kept remarkably calm. He didn’t get angry, and he followed Mercado’s confusing instructions as best he could.
After Mercado let him go free—again, because Finley had done absolutely nothing wrong—Finley went to the Walnut Ridge police station to speak with the chief and make a complaint. For this, Finley was punished: they decided to charge him with obstructing justice during the Mercado encounter. They made this decision only after Finley decided to object to his treatment. They also spoke to Finley’s wife, suggesting to her that if she saw the video she would realize that her husband had committed a crime. This was an outright lie, but it apparently played on some suspicion Finley’s wife had about him, and they later divorced.
Read the entire article at Reason.
wpDiscuz
Just your local jackbooted thugs in action.
Having a law enforcement background it is clear to see the officers initial response to the stop. For some reason call it instinct, he feared for his safety. He was correct to hand cuff the citizen to subdue the threat he felt. However at that point he should have de-escalated the tensions with his verbal demeanor. The citizen did what he thought was okay to explain his being there but did not understand the needs of the officer and the fear he had at the time of the stop. From the time the officer had the citizen in handcuffs and the citizen was not being verbally or physically abuse, the officer should have changed his demeanor and showed more respect for the citizen and officers professional position. A smile changes many bad starts and non threating demeanor would have made the situation more peaceful. The citizen had the right to file a complaint and the department should have handled it respecting both parties. Address the need for the officer to de-escalate and inform the citizens the threats officers face every second on their shift protecting the public.
When you take the job you better know its a tough one and if you are constantly in fear then you better find something else to do. ,,,, Just for the record I was a ghetto cop in Cleveland. Once he had the guy out of the car and saw he had no weapons he was WAY out of line. NO reason to handcuff at all. It’s clowns like that that cause policeman to become targets of every nutcase in the county.
It’s what happens when you hie collage boys instead of street wise people. – A policeman is born, not made. You can’t go to school to become a policeman. Either you are or you are not. – These snotballs are not.