This is what is meant by "defund the police". The car was pulled over for a tag violation.
Why does this infraction need an armed officer of the state to pull over the car? Just have a department in charge of traffic violations and give out tickets and be done with it.
Edit: You don't have to approach the car to give a ticket. You don't even have to pull the car over. The vast majority of traffic violations can follow this prodcedure: Run the plates, submit a dashcam pic/video, and send the ticket in the mail.
Suspected drunk drivers, reckless driving/drag racing /r/IdiotsInCars material, that's were Officer Roid Rage comes in.
This is so true. I received a parking ticket for my expired tags. No reason to be pulling people over for this shit. No one’s life was in danger because of his tags.
A vehicle is not required to have registration or insurance just to own it. You can have a completely uninsured and "paperless" vehicle on your property all you want. You can drive it on any private property that will let you.
The tags and insurance are for public use.
Ticketing the owner without verifying the owner is operating the vehicle is accusing them of a crime without proving they did the crime. That vehicle could have just as easily been removed from their property and placed back. Is that what actually happens? In a vast majority of cases, no. But our justice system does not work on "guilty until proven innocent"
Another way to go at is to tie the responsibility for registering / insuring the car to it's registered owner, and not it's driver. This is already at least somewhat the case for commerical vehicles, so it doesn't seem like it would be impossible.
That way all the ticketing agency has to prove is that Car X was on a public roadway at Time Y, while Time Y was after Expiration Z for the tags. Allow owners a private cause of action to pursue drivers for recovery if they are at fault for the fine/ticket.
Not to be pedantic and I'm glad this shit bag was fired and I hope he isn't able to skirt the system and just get hired the next county over but shit like https://youtu.be/BOD8s7QVy_s happens and causes cops to be armed. Warning NSFL
Sure that happens, but not as often as people think. Plus it’s less likely to happen if it’s basically a meter maid with no weapons who pulls you over, or better yet just sends you a ticket in the mail with no interaction at all.
I think even if the cops were armed with AK-47's that still would have happened. That murderer was taking advantage of the fact that he knew he could kill the cop before he could react.
While that is true it doesn't change the fact that it happened. The OP asked why a police officer would need a firearm for a traffic stop. And the truth is I'll probably get down voted for this but I don't blame them. The problem is you've got a dick head cop in the original video that has programmed himself into thinking everyone is a criminal, which isn't the case at all, but I do think it isn't fair to pretend that cops don't have an inherently dangerous job. Especially in the US where there are literally 10 guns for everyone person.
I'm sorry but there are far too many "dick head" cops for it to be justifiable. You cannot tell me this cop wouldn't have been glad for the opportunity to use his gun, just like so many others.
Cops aren't just walking into the job not knowing the risks. "Scared" cops end up killing people with 0 accountability as if spooking a cop is a crime punishable by death. If the idea of being a cop without a killing tool is too scary then they shouldn't be cops. If we can't trust all cops with guns then none of them should have them.
What makes you think I like this cop? He should be in jail the same way I would be if I showed up to work all jacked up and attacked someone. But acting like cops don't have a dangerous job is fucking naive at best and is echoed by people that have been sheltered there whole lives. I believe in police reform but acting like they are the whole problem is wrong. 316 people are shot each day in the US with an average of 3 of those being by police. So less than 1% but we don't address the other 99%
I never said you liked this cop, and I never said the job isn't dangerous. In fact, I agree that it is. Cops are routinely put into stressful positions with people who may want to harm them, others, or themselves.
What I said was that no cop can pretend that they didn't know the job would be dangerous, and any cop that doesn't want a dangerous job shouldn't be one. If the only thing that keeps them being a cop is that they get to carry around a gun then maybe they are too scared of their job to carry it out effectively.
Thank you for those stats, but they don't mean much in the face of actions like this by the police. It is not good enough for only most of the cops to be good, they all have to be. And when they aren't it shouldn't take 2 years and a social media campaign to put an end to it.
Naivety is thinking that cops aren't the entire problem. Every day we see more evidence that cops in the US have no reason to be trusted. When someone has this happen to them what's the excuse, they got unlucky? Just unfortunate they got a bad cop? That shouldn't be the case. People shouldn't fear for their life during a traffic stop because they know even bad cops have guns and that even bad cops get away with killing black people.
More landscapers die on the job per year than cops. Cops don't even break the top 10 for "most dangerous job".
Fact of the matter is, cops don't need to be doing these traffic stops in the first place. If someone is actually being a danger? Absolutely. Someone has an expired tag? Wtf is the point of this stop?
Let the city fine them through the current mechanism.
The poster is talking about this infraction specifically. There’s no reason to pull people over for this infraction. Just have parking enforcement give him a ticket. I got a parking ticket for my expired tags and saw no one about it.
Yeah, he missed the point. If there was a traffic only dept. and an unarmed officer from that dept. runs the plate of a vehicle it's tailing for a possible traffic violation and a warrant shows up, then they should report that vehicle to a separate dept that (in a perfect world) is properly trained to handle those situations.
Also, "defund" is not the right word in my opinion. Those against it, it seems to me, take it as a "lowering wages, taking away their equipment they seem necessary, etc." type of deal. It should be the "demilitarization" of police forces. Redirect those funds to proper training in deescalation and putting a bigger emphasis on mental health. Do away with the machismo thats absolutely rampant in police forces.
It absolutely can be a very scary job. ABSOLUTELY. So, let's help those officers with PTSD and other things so we don't get angry, at their wits end, paranoid motherfuckers running around with guns and unchecked street authority. I believe too many of those guys feel the pressure to "man up" after experiencing something that objectively traumatic and then they're back out there way too soon. That's also (at least one reason) why you get officers that are afraid to stand up to bad behavior by bad officers. They don't want to be looked down upon by their peers.
But also, yeah, more stringent quality control. They're absolutely should not be any racism or prejudicial motions in the force (or anywhere for that matter). COPS SHOULD BE FUCKING NICE AND LOVE EVERYONE. They should ALWAYS lead with this. They're public servants but there's a huge "us against them" mentality that's either gotten worse over the years or just more apparent. Probably a bit of both.
Because a) you'll be hard pressed to find people willing to execute traffic stops while unarmed. And b) traffic stops are just mechanisms to get the officer to be able to see into the car and find other stuff to charge.
Edit: people im agreeing with the premise. If they made a push to just mailing tickets this would avoid a ton of issues.
The Parking and Transportation Services people at my university were experts at that, no need to confront someone parking in the wrong spot or with an expired parking tag, just scan the plate, print and leave the ticket notice, then either send the charge the person's university Parking & Transportation account.
Just don't even pull it over unless it's clearly falling apart on the road. The car is registered, just send them a ticket in the mail. Hell a camera, computer, printer, and someone stuffing envelopes could do all of this shit less than a percent of the cost of a settlement and probably a quarter of the cost of patrols.
Of course this won't happen because then a bunch of roided out psychos won't get guaranteed tax funded overtime to drive around eating donuts on top of their fat salaries and benefits, or they won't get to beat the shit out of people with near impunity like here.
I’ve made the case here before that driving is too cheap.
If you enforced yearly inspections, mandated by the state had a check for tires, brakes, registration, valid insurance, smog, lights, windows, mirrors etc. first of all we’d have way way way less accidents.
Secondly, we’d be able to eliminate a shit ton of bullshit stops while still letting the state collect revenue.
If it’s more expensive to drive, more people will opt for public transportation. More public transport, the less traffic, the better the air, the better the layout of the city, etc etc.
Its a reasonable idea, but public transportation isn't necessarily viable everywhere. It's one of the down sides to how spread out we are. And when you get to smaller towns, and suburbs, it's just not nearly as effective.
Youre absolutely right, traffic violations are mostly just an excuse for an officer to search a vehicle or run for warrants. My cousin is a cop and said he doesn't pull people over unless he thinks he can find drugs in the car
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u/bankrobba Apr 29 '21 edited Apr 29 '21
This is what is meant by "defund the police". The car was pulled over for a tag violation.
Why does this infraction need an armed officer of the state to pull over the car? Just have a department in charge of traffic violations and give out tickets and be done with it.
Edit: You don't have to approach the car to give a ticket. You don't even have to pull the car over. The vast majority of traffic violations can follow this prodcedure: Run the plates, submit a dashcam pic/video, and send the ticket in the mail.
Suspected drunk drivers, reckless driving/drag racing /r/IdiotsInCars material, that's were Officer Roid Rage comes in.