by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
In yet another episode of “Cops Behaving Badly”, we have Officer Gracie of the LAPD giving citizen 34 year old Chris Jackson of Venice, California, a ticket, allegedly for “riding on the wrong side of the bike path” after Jackson complained about the officer’s motorcycle blocking the bike path. The “officer” at first claims the ticket is for riding on the wrong side of the bike path. When challenged by Jackson that 1) he was passing on a dashed line and 2) that he knew of no law covering unsafe passing on the bike lane, the real reason Jackson was being ticketed came out.
He was being ticketed for disagreeing with the officer.
When faced with a challenge from both Jackson and several citizens, he then escalates the reason for the ticket to speeding under California Vehicle Code 22350. There is a problem with that as well. Ca. VC 22350 reads “No person shall drive a vehicle upon a highway at a speed greater than is reasonable or prudent having due regard for weather, visibility, the traffic on, and the surface and width of, the highway, and in no event at a speed which endangers the safety of persons or property.” [emphasis added] Undeterred by logic, citizen complaint, being told he was being recorded for the purposes of posting to YouTube or his inability to cite an applicable California statute, Officer Gracie bulldogs ahead to write his ticket insisting that he’d be perfectly happy to write more tickets all the while ignoring people both doing what Jackson allegedly did and worse (such as walking and roller-blading on the bike path).
Jackson was supposed to be in court yesterday, Friday, January 18, 2013. However, LAPD Spokesman Detective Gus Villanueva of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Media Relations Section said that the “ticket had been canceled in the interest of justice.” He also said the department is conducing a personnel investigation into the conduct of the officer involved (sure they are) and would not comment further.
There is certainly a line being crossed here, but it isn’t a solid yellow line.
What do you think?
Source(s): NBC, Ca. VC § 22350
~submitted by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
The video doesn’t show what Jackson said beforethe confrontation.A police officer is one of the few people that can take your civil rights away. It’s best to just keep your mouth shut and not taunt them.
Bullies come in many, many forums…..
It is so pathetic that I have to say it, but in the light of police abuses documented her at least weekly, this officer was a model of restraint in his reaction. In other cases we have seen the innocent, but complaining bike rider would have been tasered and arrested for filming. such a sad commentary on law enforcement today. I my opinion in this instance the officer’s honesty was personally stupid, while honest.
“This guy probably doesnt have a job and is just an angry young man. Blame the policies of the Obama Administration not the poor cop just trying to do his job.”
Bron,
This is just silly and what’s worse is you know it. Why bother?
Why wasn’t there coverage of the Police union hero dinner for Officer Gracie?
I have gotten out of tickets by just saying yes sir and no sir and being polite to the officer.
This guy probably doesnt have a job and is just an angry young man. Blame the policies of the Obama Administration not the poor cop just trying to do his job.
Power corrupts. If you give a cop like this the right to write a ticket he may misuse it and if there is a crowd of people who are willing to take their time out to carry on about it, and some publicity sources who are willing to mock it and put it up for others to mock, it will be corrected. Will the cop also be corrected? Who knows? There are cops who kill people and come back without a scratch on their records and have 22 eulogies at their funerals. The more power concentrated in the person who is willing to misuse power for his own goals, the worse he will do so. Give a judge the right to become lawmaker (enters an order without jurisdiction) and law enforcement officer (enters an order to show cause why a person should not be in contempt for not obeying HIS OWN ultra vires order) and prosecutor (he holds a contempt “trial”) and executive (he orders wardens and sheriffs around too, naturally) and executive (he directs the actions of state agencies without hearings) and what do you have? The cop with his ticket squared and cubed.
The problem with our society is two-fold and insoluble. The only way to counteract the misuse of power is by massive outpouring of money or influence, and both of them depend upon money. AND the only way to amass and direct the use of that amount of money and influence is by misusing power.
This cyclist made the serious error of actually disagreeing with a police officer. He should have known better! amazing!
Another example of why citizens should carry some sort of recording device.
I see that Justice Holmes (of the supreme court?) gets the picture which we both posted at the exact same time. 😉
Judge Dredd was a dood who applied “the law” in a manner alien to our jurisprudence, but was characterized as just in that movie series.
This Dredd is not a judge of that dread sort, because this Dredd understands the history of “the people being the jury“, which is a better equipped social mechanism to produce justice in the long run.
The injustice in this case is that a citizen was improperly put through the requirement to go to court because of a stiffie.
Anyway, why I like this post so much is because it catches in a microcosm form, what is happening in a much broader arena than a ticket on a bike path.
Many police and politicians view themselves as “the law” so that disagreeing with them is illegal.
Disagreeing with a police officer is in fact one of the crimes that have been minted by our own cadre of “Judge Dredds” — ” I am the Law” police officers. The cyclist is lucky the stop didn’t escalate into a charge of resisting, obstruction and disorderly. Police officers are scary to see in ones path because you just don’t know what they are going to do or how they will react to you. They have guns, Tazers and they can arrest you and take away yor freedom for absolutely no reason.
For every one of these incidents that we hear about there are many that end in disaster for the luckless citizen.
You are correct Gene H …
I just tried to post the link by itself, no text, and it blocked.
Dredd,
It must be the spam filter. I didn’t change any settings for this story.
Attach electrodes to officers testicles and give him the full 50,000 watt injection….. for being a stupid ‘DICK’
Your post is blocking links Gene H.
Great post Gene H.
The cop was on the wrong side of the line between peace officer and anal cavity.
It is a virtual epidemic I tells ya!
A bad day at the “office” for that officer. It is good that he didn’t shoot the bicyclist.
This officer is clearly a joke. My question is why do other officers (most of whom are descent) put up with these kinds of clowns?
I tink it stink.
I am pretty tired of those, however few or many, LEOs who have this giant chip on their shoulders. They really need better training if they’re going to deal appropriately with he public. And, yes, I know, they put their lives on the line for me, but no one begged they to suit up or, perhaps, it is just that bully boy aspect that attracted them to the profession in the first place.
BTW, I got a ticket in DC many years ago (50?) for riding my bike the wrong way on a one way street. I was chagrined, but it was probably legit, and I didn’t take the time off to contest it in court. The stupid part was the officer threatened that I was going to get points on my driver’s license for the violation. A bit over the top I thought.