It is common to get advice like “never look a polar bear in the eye.” The same appears to be true with Dayton police officers. Driver John Felton has posted a video of a pull over by a police officer who told him that he was pulled over because he “made direct eye contact” with him while driving by.
The officer remains polite in the video tape below but he admits near the end that he followed the driver (who is clearly upset) “Because you made direct eye contact with me and held onto it when I was passing you.”
The officer handed John Felton a warning for a traffic signal violation. Felton had to sit on the roadside after being following by the officer for some time.
The city arranged for Felton to have a conversation with the officer, facilitated by the Dayton Mediation Center. Felton, who has retained a lawyer, says that he was stopped because of his Michigan plates even though he grew up in the area.
The traffic violation of not signaling more than 100 feet before making a turn is something that most drivers have done repeatedly.
When Felton objected to the concept of suspicious eye contact, the officer said “I am not going to argue about it anymore with you, sir. I’ll just scan your license and give you a citation for the violation, and you could take it to court.”
Here is the video:
Source: CNN
Isaac, it is expected that laws come with a certain amount of objectivity, that is the only way to insure fairness in the system’s dealing with citizens.
Illegal stop and seizure requires a certain amount of recognizable “offenses”, suspicion and the empowering of cops to act solely on suspicion is to lead to great abuses of the system and of the rights of the citizenry. I know of cases where guys ended up dead based on actions the cops took BECAUSE the dude avoided their gaze, which made him seem suspicious.
Freddy Gray was attacked by the cops and subsequently killed because he ran away at their approach, which became a de facto crime.
The ironic thing is that most blacks would avoid looking a cop in the eye, not unlike the student in class who won’t look up for fear that meeting the teacher’s eyes would insure he is asked to answer the question. I personally avoid it, though I am no criminal, for that reason exactly.
Being black in this country, even when like me, not from here, is to live under a cloud of suspicion where the mere awareness of a cop nearby is sufficient to raise the heart rate and quicken the breathing.
I suspect this cop took offense to the fact that this black challenged his authority by daring to look him in the eye, when most people acknowledge the authority by lowering their gaze.
Yep, Bam, thank you for proving my point!
Addressing my logical and intelligent points by… focusing on the the misspelling of one word due to a sticky letter on a keyboard shows how logical and intelligent you are 🙂
Always happens this way…your attacks act as a boomerang…curves right back and slam you on the noggin!
Anything else?
po’s logical and intelligent mind? Another great laugh for the day. His illogical and unintelligent mind mask nothing. Four languages? Is one of them Pig Latin? I’m quite sure that your opinions are as misguided and delusional in all of them.
stevegroen
That cops must make decisions to investigate goes with the job. How it’s done is the critical issue.
Expecting cops to ‘add up’ all the issues that may or may not exist would render them ineffectual. I have been stopped for stuff and received both warnings and tickets. The cops, more than once, explained that if they get suspicious for any reason, they follow you a while and wait for you to screw up. If it is speeding then if you don’t slow down they pull you over. If you slow down and it appears that you are driving carefully, after following you for a while they turn away.
Regarding the profiling issue. What is the alternative? The Black driver of that car from out of state eyeballed me but because he is Black I won’t follow, my instincts. It is going to take a lot of changes in this country for instincts to change.
America is a country of ideals and realities. In order to arrive at the ideals it must address the realities. The reality in the cop’s mind is a Black driving a car with Michigan plates who eyeballs me might just take some looking into. The cop should have started with respect and and explanation. A warning would have helped.
Issac wrote: “That cops must make decisions to investigate goes with the job. How it’s done is the critical issue.”
Your statement per se reflects the problem, and I’ll grant you that its the reality and needs to stop. Cops investigate what doesn’t amount to crime or any reasonable facsimile. They are not here to investigate unless there is some reasonable suspicion, and our fundamental law (through the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, forbids it otherwise. Looking at a cop in the eye is a reason to investigate. Baloney! People have the right to be let alone by government unless and until there’s reasonable suspicion that crime is afoot. Otherwise, it is abuse, which is exactly what the victim in the video articulated in his own way.
The cop is devoid of the ability to investigate for the sake of investigation. The guy may have looked the cop in the eye and aroused the cop’s suspicion. That is not unusual and it comes with the territory. However, the fact that the cop only cited the driver for an extremely stupid reason shows that he investigated, found nothing wrong-no pot smell-no evidence of drinking-etc but did indeed go too far.
The cop should have begun with an, “I’m only going to give you a warning this time but you should be aware….”. He could have done his job-investigated, and really have earned some respect. Cops should be treated with respect but although some of that respect is earned through the fact that they can and sometimes do blow you away if you fight back, the most important degree of respect is earned by the respect the cop must show to the citizen. This cop was cordial but poorly trained to deal with the public, especially the present day American Black public.
Issac: Looking a cop straight in the eye is reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed and dude did it, such that it permits him to follow dude for two miles? That goes too far.
The only way that could be reasonable is if reasonableness includes profiling black skin and adding a license plate from Michigan where blacks have no job and commit crimes and do drugs. Horse hockey.
If police departments across the country don’t wake up and take responsibility for their past and continued actions regarding police abuse and violations of civil rights and stop doing it, I’m afraid that we are going to see more of these police assassinations. The populace will eventually fight back. And of course the populace who does fight back will most likely be the criminals who have guns. It’s really awful that it’s come to this. Blhlls, Po and others here are are right.
Well said, blhlls
Funny how ebonics cannot mask my logical and intelligent mind…Nor can speaking 4 languages BEFORE learning English.
What’s your excuse, bamie?
Nick, the most important thing law enforcement agencies can to to ensure ongoing public support is to be seen to be dealing appropriately with the “bad apples” that everyone agrees exist. Every time an agency is seen to be ignoring or justifying misconduct by its officers, all officers lose. Even when action is taken against a single officer for misconduct, there is often evidence that other officers provided false information in connection with the matter which did not result in substantial disciplinary action.
I do not assume that every claimed incident of misconduct, or even most such claims, are true. However, when incidents like the reckless shootings during the hunt for Dorner do not result in substantial discipline, let alone criminal charges, support for law enforcement generally, and therefore every officer, takes a hit.
The greatest crime to an arrogant cop is “disrespect” which is any sign that you’re not afraid of him and treating him like your Master.
Once I was riding a BICYCLE to work at 6 am, the streets were deserted, no cross traffic so I went through a stop sign. 30 seconds later I see a cop car speeding at me lights flashing and siren blasting. He pulls me over and gives me a ticket for the stop sign. When I expressed surprise for the ticket, he said “You know why I’m giving a ticket. You looked me right in the eye when you went through that stop sign.” It turned out he had been sitting at a cross street 6 blocks away. So when I looked down the street to see if it was clear of traffic, in his paranoid psychotic mind I was showing him disrespect.
I can’t even begin to imagine how bad it is for a Black man,
IMO police are fostering an atmosphere where the police are the enemy. 793 people in the U.S. have been killed by on and off duty police since Jan 1 ’15. Don’t blame the messenger. We are all responsible for our own actions.
Ebonics. Go with it, po. That’s about your level. Obvious to all.
haha…good point…sicky keyboard would eat your ‘s.
You haven’ earned the T anyway
This could go either way. We want the police to detect crime- getting an unusual stare from a driver could mean all kinds of things. Non-verbal communication is powerful – the guy could have been signaling some kind of trouble, or that he was out of sorts for some kind of reason (like having committed a crime). The guy was not searched or ticketed, so it seems reasonable to me. If a cop pulled me for looking at him, and I said “nothing is wrong, thanks for checking”, its likely the encounter would be over in a moment… If I gave him bad attitude, and I’d technically committed a violation, I would expect what we saw here….. I’m Mr. Civil Liberty but you have to give the cops something to work with too….
I have a problem with pulling someone over for eyeballing them and then giving them a ticky-tacky ticket.
It’s a COMPLAINT, not a COMPLAIN, po.
You can spell FALLACIOUS, but not COMPLAINT?
Thanks for the laugh.
This is fascinating!
The only ones helping foster an atmosphere where the police are the enemy are the ones who see any legitimate complain against one officer as an illegitimate complain against all officers.
This is about his case, this officer… not all officers!
Ah, the fallacious lot!
Where is JT’s article about the Houston officer, shot in cold blood, while filling his car with gasoline? That doesn’t merit an article, but this does? JT mentions that failing to signal a turn more than a 100 feet prior to that turn is something that most drivers have done repeatedly–that’s his reasoning? Since so many people do it, it’s a stop that shouldn’t have been performed? With that logic, those that speed shouldn’t be stopped, as well. Drivers do it repeatedly. Great argument. I’ll use that one to defend a client the next time that I’m in court. I’m with you on this, Nick. Just more noise to add to the constant drumbeat against police officers. When an officer is then gunned down, shot repeatedly for no apparent reason, those guilty of beating those drums don’t see the blood on their own hands in fostering an atmosphere where the police are the enemy.
The police officer gets no points for following someone for 2 miles based on eye contact. Eye contact is even reasonable suspicion of a crime having been committed?
Then he threatens a citation rather than a warning if he Dude persists. Let’s chill speech when speech is justified.
A desk job for that patronizing, potentially-dangerous badge and more scrutiny of policy in that Department.
The police officer thought Dude’s name was boy, but he found it’s Roy.
It’s nice to be polite and have a backup plan when your pulled over.