VIDEO: Driver Tased For Asking Why He Was Stopped

reply to post by Parabol

Since I started that comment let me respond to ya...

Basically when an officer is on the road, with no blue lights on, they are under the same speed restrictions as you. For an officer to speed, and then cite a citizen for speeding when they are actually following the law (i.e. you must maintain a consistent rate of travel with the traffic around you. This is a stoppable offense as it is an endangerment to go to slowly[or transversely to quickly]; especially on major roads or interstates.) by maintaining a responsible and consistent speed as not to impede or endanger others around you is a form of entrapment.

A better example for this argument would be a cop off-duty offering you pot, getting you high and faking that he is getting high with you. Then when you have drugs in your system they arrest you. Basically its the officer holding the citizen to a different standard than they themselves have. Officers may have to be obeyed and respected, but they are not given entitlement to a right of superiority.

now just to sway off topic for a second I agree with you parabol, especially about people needing to respect officers and both parties being a part of the problem... BUT I do believe this officer has proven himself to be the lowest of the low.

Ahhh... Good to see the usual bootlickers out to defend cops who abuse their power like Gestapo thugs. I just love it when I see the ol'

"If you just follow orders you won't get hurt"

Um, yeah folks, that works great in your little fairy tale chocolate World where policemen aren't power drunk psychos. Cops used to be admired and respected, because their behaviour warranted that trust. Those days are largely gone though, and now the police rule by fear.

Yeah, the guy didn't follow orders, and didn't obey the officer. Why? Because he was completely and totally confused by the actions of this cop. He has been pulled over before, perhaps even by police officers who were angry or cruel. The difference is, they were competent officers and engaged in a communication that was clear. This guy in Utah, from the moment he pulls them over in the way that he does it is clear that he is not behaving normally. The entire time he is engaging with the driver he is completely out of touch with how to talk to someone at all, never mind how to talk to them in a police / citizen manner.

Is the problem simply that the general moral fabric of society leads to people like this becoming cops? This isn't about a taser, this could have happened with a club or pepper spray or any other weapon that the cop pulled happily for no reason, instead of using words to resolve a situation.

This video will at least serve as one thing: I am quite sure they will be showing it to their own forces as an example of how NOT to act to people so that a situation gets out of control (and hopefully costs this cop his job, although I doubt that).

Sadly this new era of shocking police abuse isn't just happening in the US, here in Canada there have been dozens of recent cases of unimaginable behaviour by police forces once revered around the World. Even in the tiny little remote town I live in up North, things happen. An RCMP officer new on the job was a complete psycho and ended up taking a 17 year old kid into custody for drinking a beer in public. He then shut off the cameras in lockup and executed the kid by shooting him point blank in the back of the head. This was international news, you may have seen news about the inquiries that followed. It was a chilling reminder that the 'old cops' are gone, and now ALL the police are people that grew up in a very corrupt, rotten, and sad World.

I won't go into how this plays into the formation of a Police State and the new fascist style of government that will follow the 'big crash' that is inevitable within the next decade, to me it is simply a happy accident - they are getting the training for their new shock troops for free.

Police can do whatever they want...

People are weak and powerless to this day.

A little yarn ....

My wife and myself planned a weekend away camping. The destination was the Great Ocean Road (for those not in Australia, it is one of, if not the best ocean rd drives in the world - Google it and see for yourself)

My wifes sister arranged to house sit for us over the weekend, and as I was packing the car, the sister called at the last minute to say she couldn't house sit.
Great! the whole weekend now ruined.

After a few minutes of ummming and arrrring we decided to go anywayz.
The drive there was awesome, as it always is on the Great Ocean Road. Got to our camping spot and began setting up camp. Low and behold in the BS of the sister calling whilst I was packing, I went and forgot the tent

Great! now the weekend was well and truly stuffed.

We packed up our things into the car and I told my wife I planed to at least have some fun on the drive home, so she best close her eyes and take a nap as I planned to drive my car hard.
I own a Nissan Skyline R32 GTR, if anyone knows their sports cars will know that the R32 GTR is one of, if not the best sports cars ever produced.
Twisty mountain roads are what that beast was made for, and I planned to make my drive home as enjoyable as possible.

So the stereo was turned up and AC/DC Highway to Hell was pumping through the sound system. Pure bliss, twisting and turning through the coastlines mountainous trail.
Some time during the drive I happen to look in the rear view mirror - what do I see? 2 cops in their patrol car, lights flashing, siren blasting and pointing at me to pull over.

Now I already knew I was a goner. I was speeding AND when safe, I was using both sides of the road on some corners that I could see ahead. But still a no no and definitely a chargeable offense.

The cop gets out of his car and I could see he was PISSED OFF! Comes to my window and tells me to get out of the vehicle. takes me to the rear of the car and says "do you know how fast you was traveling?" I aint gonna be a wanka and lie, so I bend the truth slightly and say "around 120kmh?" he then asks me if I know what the speed limit is, I reply "sure, its 100kmh" he then says to me its 50kmh

I say "since when?" and he explains that during the Christmas season they change the speed from 100kmh to 50kmh due to the holidays and tourists.
Oh sh*t I am definitely 100% going to lose my license because going that much over the speed limit is an automatic disqualification.
Then he asks "do you have a valid reason for driving so fast?"
I stop for a moment and think of a cunning plan, definitely worth a shot as I am about to lose my license. So I say I do have a reason, though he might not think of it as a good one. I ask him if I can open the boot of the car, he says ok and I open the boot. I say to him "you wil findl everything for a weekend away in the boot except one thing" he uses his baton torch to poke around the boot and looks at me and says "did you forget the tent?"

I pull my BEST sad and disappointed face I could muster, and then explain to the officer that if he had a wife like mine, and I explained she had this weekend planned for months and I've gone and ruined it, that I will never hear the end of it and I just wanted to get home as quickly as possible so I didn't have to listen to her bitch and moan ALL the way home, he looked at me with pity and said "you poor bugga" - "I'm married too"

Not only did he NOT cancel my license, he didn't even write me up a ticket AND he got a pen and pad out to draw me directions to the nearest town where I could purchase a tent!

WHAT A TOP BLOKE!

The whole time I answer everything with Sir. I was polite, I treated him with respect and obeyed everything he asked me to do. No attitude, no smartass remarks.
I was totally in the wrong, he could have thrown the book at me, but he was a decent person who understood my plight.
Even though, truth be known, my wife would NEVER nag and give me grief about forgetting the tent. I was speeding because I wanted to drive my car hard on the best road in the world.

But a little bit of BS and ALOT of common courtesy goes a LONG way.

Be nice to the police, they are only doing their job.

Hi everyone,this is my 2 cents on this incident,although being from the uk and all I don't know much about US traffic laws.But it is a new one on me that you can get tasered for speeding.The cop was a bit dopey and unprofessional at telling the guy why he was pulled over,Massey seems to think that the cop has not clocked him speeding and decides to be verbally awkward and ask for an explanation(An Intelligent Law enforcement officer would or should then tell Massey to calm down and be more authorative but instead the cop looses his head and takes a power trip)tells massey(an unarmed man-no threat whatsover,if he was believed to be of any threat to the officer he would've told him to get out of the car and proceeded to check him over for firearms)exit the vehicle massey then thinks the officer is gonna show him the speed limit signs which he is disputing and the officer loses his head,turns around pulls his taser which massey thinks is a gun(he obviously thinks the cop is a lunatic,which i do)the cop tasers him to the ground leaves the suspect lying in the middle of the road while going over to shout at a distressed pregnant woman with a child in the car to get back in the vehicle.and so on ...I think when it goes to court the officer will lose his badge.

reply to post by Zeta115


thanks for the input of your three years of no-ledge.im gonna guess on the inferiority complex.your probably a better speller to.your here for us,not for intimidation on a speeding citation.good luck on the longevity of you and your career.i think the person who had any explaing to do would be the cop.sign this cop!

There was a child in the car and the woman was pregnant, I think the officer could have used common sense and kept his taser ready but there was no need to fire it.

Rationalizing this is the first stop toward the dark side. These types of things are happening more and more and need to stop.

reply to post by defcon2


yes, a professional officer is interested in calming down the situation.not to (ab)use autority.
the more u are incompetent as a police officer/security guard,the more dangerous the whole situation becomes.
you can see that because he is unable to calm down his wife .he is just giving orders.asshole.
how would you react, when your friend is lying down with his face and is getting teasered..
then lies to his colgeague.


[edit on 24-11-2007 by anti72]

It is not obvious from the cop's perspective that the man and his wife were not threats. How do you know? For all this cop knows he has pulled over drug dealers or violent people. I know it doesn't sound right to go about assuming the worst in everyone but I think your view would change if you spent some time working as a police officer.

You do realize that an officer is required to plug the license plate into their computer and find out if the car they're pulling over is stolen or if the owner of the car has any outstanding warrants, right? Believe me, the officer knew the history of the driver and maybe even his passenger well before he approached the car. He knew he was dealing with people who had no criminal history whatsoever, and he still treated them like they were dangerous.

[edit on 24-11-2007 by Majal]

reply to post by LDragonFire


I think the cops are very excited with their new toys and want to try it

A family man with minivan, wife, child, and even cantaloupe, pulled over for speeding deserves all the respect and clarification from an officer of the community, city, state, etc in regards to what he was pulled over for. These people work to maintain the order of all systems, not to rule your very average citizen with an iron fist. The citizens mistakes were obvious ones, but understandable given the commands from the officer were unclear, vague, and confusing. It's not the citizen's responsibility to know what to do, and as an authority figure, you should do your best to clearly explain how to conduct themselves in your presence.

There's also a drastic difference in the commands the officer had given and the commands he had said he had given when discussing what had happened with his fellow officer. This was a blatant misuse of power, and it even shows how the officer is backpeddling and adding to his story to another officer in regards to how it all went down. Acts by authority figures like these are pretty alarming in terms of another human being dictating the well being of others, even temporarily.

wow, the man that was arrested was probably the most courteous I could imagine under the conditions. I am appalled at the users here defending his actions. Seriously, seriously disturbed. I would go into a long explanation, but there's really no point. Some of you are just like sheeps in wolves clothing, policing and sentencing your own. Constantly defending oppressors, I just want to understand why.

it even shows how the officer is backpeddling and adding to his story to another officer in regards to how it all went down.

exactly. everyone is always looking for some huge, grand conspiracy. or a smoking gun that a police state is coming / here... but they all ignore the small details like this, that really make a difference. These nuances are exactly what corruption is all about. And when they are small like this, is goes to show the cop may not even realize he's doing it anymore. It's all become such a standard practice, this entire event could have been running off his pure subconscious. For all we know, the entire time the cop could have daydreaming, like some of us may do at work during a familiar process.

this is the same mentality that makes them all comfortable with using tasers. After a certain amount of media uproar, they will write it off as media extremism, and then taser use will really go up.

My prediction: after years and years of legislation and public outrage, they will pass the Taser Public Safety Act, which will basically require the cops to shout out "Sir, you are about to be tased, if you have any preexisting heart or other medical conditions state them now!" followed by a "huh?" by the vict.. err I mean threat - followed by a "zzzp zzpp zzpp" and then moaning.

Whenever they moan, you can tell they deserved it.

[edit on 24-11-2007 by scientist]

reply to post by DeadFlagBlues


I agree with you 100%,Massey could be interpreted as being awkward with the officer but he was in no way aggressive and since when has a citizen no right to question an officer of the law,they are there to serve and protect you the citizen,not to taser a man with a child and pregnant wife in the car for refusal to sign a speeding ticket.The officer was like a power tripping lunatic and massey's wife or gf probably got out the car to call for help thinking the officer is a danger to her child and also her unborn child.Hopefully the guy will lose his job.

The guy had every right to be told why he was being pulled over and the Cop refused to to inform him of the information that he has the right to be told as a citizen. Cops cannot just arbitrarily hand out tickets for no reason.

As for the tazing? This cop is clearly out of his fricking mind. The guy gets out of the car expecting to have a civilized conversation with this cop and is immediately confronted with a deadly weapon (Tazers kill, deal with it).
Then after tazing the husband and leaving him in the middle of the street this Pig has the nerve to threaten the guy's Pregnant Wife (Who in my opinion would have been justified in using deadly force against that dirty Pig in self defense). The cop was clearly out of his mind, if a private citizen acted like the Cop, the private citizen would have been arrested for assault. This is a clear cut case of Police Brutality.

Apparently ALL charges against the driver have been dropped. Funny how if the Cop was justified that the DA would drop all charges against that vicious criminal. I am just glad that this guy's kids will have their college paid for by the MASSIVE LAWSUIT and the Pigs kids will end up making cheeseburgers for them cause daddy Pig is going to lose his job.

We are Free, the State makes us less Free, and when freedom is taken by force we must defend ourselves. Hopefully we can enact change peacefully here in the US, unfortunately the sheep rarely are able to negotiate reasonably with the farmer before slaughter.

For all of you in law enforcement defending this Fascist Pig, well I hope you don't ever pull me over and act like that. Some of us Slaves are armed.

Originally posted by pavil
The Driver did not obey rule #1 when pulled over by the police, follow the policeman's directions. That he repeatedly kept questioning the officer about the details did not help him.

.

yeah, god forbid the guy actually asks the copper a question...
there is no rule number 1...you don't have to say doo doo BUT, be prepared to go to the station....


people bow down to the coppers cause they have a badge and a gun....

let me take a quote from a song called 'who needs the peace corps'.

was released in 65 and it was a rip on the counter culture.

now, this sond is a rip.....he is not advocating any of it...he is ripping it

globalia.net...'re_Only_In_It_For_The_Money.html#Peace

---------

First I'll buy some beads
And then perhaps a leather band
To go around my head
Some feathers and bells
And a book of Indian lore
I will ask the Chamber Of Commerce
How to get to Haight Street
And smoke an awful lot of dope
I will wander around barefoot
I will have a psychedelic gleam in my eye at all times
I will love everyone
I will love the police as they kick the # out of me on the street

guess not much has changed in 40+ years

This is not the first time a driver has been arrested for not signing a ticket

This is not the first time a cop pulled over a driver for maybe speeding

The cop may have been pressured to write more tickets by his superiors

The driver was not a docile citizen and this led to his legal arrest
There is nothing morally wrong with being arrested.
Many great people have been arrested, thank you

If we have to live in a civilization with laws then the possibility of arrest will alway exist

The driver's ignorance of the legal ramifications of not signing the ticket combined with the cops negligence in informing the driver of the same legal ramification led to the Taser incident....case dismissed !

The scary part that separates this incident from other such mundane arrests is the TAZER factor.

Everything would have happened exactly the same, driver ticketed, driver arrested for not signing ticket, case dismissed for procedural inconsistency,...without the TAZER !

The TAZER has created a debate on Pain as deterrent to non compliance

When a problem exists "needless torture" it can be addressed two ways:

There can be a solution which is resolved by mandatory obedience to authority

or we can remove the cause of the "needless torture" problem

no not the law, no not the cops but yes.........The TAZER !!!

This way there is a clear choice comply or be arrested , but not comply or be tortured !!!

reply to post by C0le


Cole, I usually have great respect for your posts, but in this case I think you're way off the mark. "Civil disobedience, try it sometime", that statement is about as irresponsible as it gets. The law and it's agents are due a certain amount of respect, whether you agree with it or not.

It's not this officer's job to prove to the driver, on the spot, the whys and hows of the traffic offense, that's what he does in court. The really hilarious part of this is that half the time the cops don't even show up in court and the ticket gets dismissed. This driver made a mountain out of a molehill. Forget all the mental anguish he put his family through. This driver is the definition of a douche and a drama queen.

The tasering was justified and there will be no lawsuit, at least one that makes it all the way to trial. There are bad cops and many instances where tasering was unjust, this is not one of them.

Peace

Every law enforcement officer who is issued a taser should have it used once on him or her during training.

Incidents like these, invariably due to incompetent, power-tripping, boneheaded cops, would drop dramatically.

Originally posted by Dr Love
reply to post by C0le

 

Cole, I usually have great respect for your posts, but in this case I think you're way off the mark. "Civil disobedience, try it sometime", that statement is about as irresponsible as it gets. The law and it's agents are due a certain amount of respect, whether you agree with it or not.

In my world respect is earned not givin. Civil disobedience is supposed to be a hallmark of a free and open society. We no longer have a free and open society, you can be arrested for wearing the wrong t-shirt, or voicing the wrong opinions and before they arrest you, they need to taze you first.

Wrong or not, our government does not listen to us anymore, the people spoke loud and clear during the 2006 elections, and what has changed? Nothing has changed.

In my world the citizen are due a certain amount of respect, whether you agree with them or not.

It's not this officer's job to prove to the driver, on the spot, the whys and hows of the traffic offense, that's what he does in court. The really hilarious part of this is that half the time the cops don't even show up in court and the ticket gets dismissed. This driver made a mountain out of a molehill. Forget all the mental anguish he put his family through. This driver is the definition of a douche and a drama queen.

Agreed, it's the officers JOB to Serve and to Protect! So in your opinion the driver had no right to question this officer?

Forget the mental anguish the cop put this guys family through./sarcasm

The tasering was justified and there will be no lawsuit, at least one that makes it all the way to trial. There are bad cops and many instances where tasering was unjust, this is not one of them.

I would take this bet any day, this citizen is going to win big time... we will wait and see. This tape proves the officer did not follow proper procedures and then lied about it to a fellow officer, It's on Tape! man, did you even watch the video?

Peace

unlikely

[edit on 24-11-2007 by LDragonFire]

Originally posted by gottago
Every law enforcement officer who is issued a taser should have it used once on him or her during training.

They do, and at least in most major police departments it's standard practice.

There are obviously people that just don't like cops, regardless of if they're doing their job right or not.

I can say honestly that there have been a few times where I was in the wrong, especially involving alcohol, and because of my self-control I was let off with a warning. I count my blessings and never forget that.

This 'tard got himself tased and put his family in a terrible position over a worthless traffic ticket. I'll even be willing to bet that his wife was in the car telling him to just sign the damn thing and let's go. He was probably just putting on a show for her, a show she wasn't even interested in seeing.

Peace