Father & 7yo daughter held at gunpoint by ‘insane & violent’ police officer

Ken Walton, a California resident, has described today the moment he was held at gun point and threatened in front of his 7yr old daughter.

This sounds like one scary situation and underlines just how on edge the police seem to be.

www.rt.com...

My daughter and I are from San Francisco, on vacation, traveling through the Southwest. Today we were driving from Hoover Dam to the Grand Canyon in a Toyota Camry we'd rented from Fox Car Rental in Las Vegas. In Williams, Arizona, as I exited Interstate 40 to head north toward the Canyon rim, I was pulled over by an AHP officer who'd been tailing me for a couple of miles. I hadn't been speeding, so I wondered if perhaps the car had a broken taillight or something.

I rolled down my window and waited. Suddenly, the officer rapped on the rear passenger side window with his pistol. My daughter, who was sitting inches from the barrel of his gun, jumped with fear as the officer yelled at me to roll down the front passenger window, his service weapon pointed directly at me. I knew something was terribly awry and I tried to remain calm, keeping my hands visible as I slowly fumbled for the window controls in an unfamiliar car. My daughter rolled down her window and I explained that we were in a rental car, that we had no weapons, and I was having trouble figuring out how to roll down the front passenger window from my driver's side door.

The officer didn't listen, and kept yelling louder and more insistently, ordering me to comply with his request as he leered at me down the barrel of his pistol. My daughter panicked and tried to get out of her booster seat to reach forward to roll down the front window, and the officer screamed her at her not to move as he pointed his pistol at her. Somehow I was able to get the window down, and then the officer ordered me to exit the car with my hands up. I did so slowly and with my hands raised as high in the air as possible, and as he came around to the driver's side of the car he screamed at me to face away from him, as if I were doing something wrong. (I didn't know this was the protocol for being arrested at gunpoint.) Then, as I had my hands in the air, he yelled, at the top of his lungs, in a voice I will never forget, as my daughter looked on in terror, "Get your hands away from your waist or I'll blow two holes through your back right now!" My hands were high in the air as he said this, and I was not in any way reaching for my waist. I was utterly terrified.

I've heard stories of police yelling out false things like this before they unjustifiably attack someone as a way to justify the attack, and I thought this was what was happening to me. I braced for bullets to hit me and all I could think of was my daughter having to watch it happen and being left alone on the side of the highway with an insane, violent cop. The bullets didn't arrive, though. I followed every order of the officer as slowly and deliberately as I could, very slowly backed toward him, got to my knees, was placed in handcuffs, and was thrown inside the back of his car. By this time many more officers has arrived, and I could see a couple of them talking to my daughter.

Why was I arrested? The car I was had rented had previously had its front license plate lost or stolen, so the car rental company reported this to the Nevada DMV. The Arizona highway patrol officer, who looked up my plate number while he was tailing me, misinterpreted this Nevada DMV report as meaning that I was driving a car with a stolen license plate, and somehow this prompted him to approach me at gunpoint and threaten to kill me in front of my little girl. After a few minutes he released me from the handcuffs, and since I knew the truth, I called him out for over-reacting, and told him he had no reason to threaten to shoot me.

He stood by his story that I had made a threatening movement toward my waist, and I said it wasn't true, and he said this wasn't the place to discuss it. He let me go attend to my daughter but continued to "detain" us for another 20 minutes as he talked to his supervisors, presumably plotting damage control. I got his card, his supervisor's number, the case number, and the cards of other officers on the scene. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about it.

My daughter is traumatized. She said she wanted to cry to the officers who were comforting her, but she was afraid they would get mad at her. As we drove the final hour to our Grand Canyon hotel, she told me she was confused, because she thought the police were the good guys, and she didn't know why the officer said he would kill me when my hands were in the air. I tried to come up with an explanation but I struggled for words.

I'm not sure why I'm writing all this down. Maybe it's because, as I sat in that back of that police car and heard the AHP officer learn the truth from his dispatcher - that the man he'd just captured at gunpoint and threatened to murder was totally innocent - I realized it was very possible that the only reason I was alive was because I am a scrawny 48-year-old white man wearing a Micky Mouse t-shirt and cargo shorts and hiking boots. The officer that arrested me was so pumped up on adrenaline and eager to get a "bad guy" that he could barely control himself, and if I'd looked just a little bit more threatening to him - because I was black, or young, or long-haired, or tattooed, or didn't speak English - I believe he might have pulled the trigger. If you are a person who has ever looked skeptically at the claims of Black Lives Matter, or others who talk about police violence, I urge you to consider what happened to me and put yourselves in the shoes of others. I just survived a bizarre gunpoint situation in which I was as innocent as Philando Castile, who was not as lucky as I was. We live in a society where anywhere and everyone can have a gun at any time, and police are responding with fear in dangerous ways.

I got lucky tonight. My daughter and I made it to the Grand Canyon and I'm going to try to salvage what's left of our vacation. Many others - because of the color of their skin or the way they look or because of simple bad luck - did not meet the same fate.

Administrative notes: I may not be able to respond to your comments or PMs or tests about this post. The kiddo and I are OK, and looking forward to hiking the Grand Canyon tomorrow. I'm going to try not to spend much time on facebook after I post this, and cell service here sucks. I'm thinking about taking legal action against Arizona for this. I'm really mad about it. Perhaps it's a waste of time, but I feel like I need to do something to try to protect others against officer Oton Villegas, even if it costs me a lot of money in legal fees. If you have any advice about this, please contact me directly. Love you all.

Sad to hear such a story.

Thats insane, and normal.

Somethings got to give.

Something will be done by those less suited to do it, since those who should be part of the solution will not.

a reply to: UKTruth

Maybe the answer is police should be required to go through a psychiatric stress evaluation every 2 years. Dealing with the public, juveniles and dangerous criminals on a weekly basis could easily stress out police officers. I think the stress officers are under could easily be the root of some of these unarmed police shootings.

originally posted by: tadaman
Thats insane, and normal.

Somethings got to give.

Something will be done by those less suited to do it, since those who should be part of the solution will not.

The guy didn't really mention the car rental company, but if I were him I would be furious at them. They either reported the car after or before he drive it away. Either way they put him in danger and he should sue them too.

a reply to: UKTruth

she told me she was confused, because she thought the police were the good guys, and she didn't know why the officer said he would kill me when my hands were in the air.

Out of the mouths of babes.

Bad cops CAUSE all the tension between the Public and the majority of the Police which are just good guys trying to do a good job...the bad / psychopathic / sociopathic / crooked among them MUST be weeded out for the good of the Police and the Public.

ALL police ought to be legally compelled to wear body cams and record every second of their time on duty (except perhaps for bathroom breaks)..that way, the 'get your hands up' when they are already up routine would no longer work.

It's a simple solution to a life threatening problem.

Another prime example of this not being a racial issue but that of $@&% poor training or even lack of any training. Even those in the military are looking at the police as what the fudge are they doing.

a reply to: UKTruth
There should be mandatory drug testing for cops especially for Steroids..From what was described above sounded like roid rage.

a reply to: greydaze

I would like to know the name and location of this bad cop, even a phone number of his boss.

a reply to: UKTruth

At the very least, you need to file a complaint.

Cop need to read well enough to tell a stolen front plate from a stolen car.

originally posted by: wissy
a reply to: greydaze

I would like to know the name and location of this bad cop, even a phone number of his boss.

The cops name was in the FB post from the guy it happened to... an Oton Villegas.
I am also reading a few things about the victim too.. he has been convicted of fraud in the past..
The police have yet to make a statement on the incident.

Some response from the police I found...

azdailysun.com... d.html

a reply to: UKTruth

Insanity today is being pushed as Normality.

The cop needs to have his badge stripped and he needs to be tossed somewhere he can't hurt anyone ever again.

I won't say more, it's pissing me off just reading this. Where ARE the Vikings!?

I don't know--this story seems a tad bit over-dramatically written and embellished with emotion, almost as if he was coached by a writer in what to say and how to say it. I'm not saying that the incident didn't happen as described, but without dashcam footage (which is suspicious), we'll never really know if his version of the incident is accurate. It does, however, seem to have way too much of an attempt to incite emotional response for me to take it as cannon as to what actually happened.

Either way, it sucks that a child would have to see an officer pull a gun on their parent, not matter what led up to the incident. I hope that she doesn't have any lasting issues from it.

If this mans story is true, that officer needs to be removed or not be allowed to patrol until he undergoes some serious training. Idk. That's messed up, and I'm biased in favor of the police..... This guy needs to be on desk duty if he is to remain on the force.


-Alee

a reply to: SlapMonkey

Either way, it sucks that a child would have to see an officer pull a gun on their parent, not matter what led up to the incident. I hope that she doesn't have any lasting issues from it.

You mean like Orwell's boot firmly implanted in her face ?

Here is that article Link

No video from car dash or officer.

Yeah, it is the reasonable way the police said.

Which version is correct will never be clearly stated but I'll go with the man.

a reply to: NerdGoddess

Unfortunately, it seems that the instructors would say he handled it exactly as taught as of late.

originally posted by: roadgravel
Here is that article Link

From your link:

And it all started with a stolen license plate.

“Tonight, I was arrested at gunpoint by an Arizona highway patrol officer who threatened to shoot me in the back (twice) in front of my 7-year-old daughter,” San Francisco resident Ken Walton posted on Facebook at approximately 1 a.m. Friday.

While a spokesperson for DPS acknowledged Walton’s anger was understandable, he also called the man’s claims exaggerated and his anger misdirected.

“The bottom line is, our trooper did everything correctly,” said DPS Capt. Damon Cecil.

How many times have we heard this kind of response. Two or three years ago I think I wrote on this very board that unless there is a sense of equal justice for all regardless of the uniform this cycle is going to get worse. When some supervisor covers for a stupid act by a fellow officer some of the hot headed public feels like they have no recourse but to strike back. If the officer's actions were completely legit and proper it does not matter at this stage simply because of the way some perceive many cops to be...

There is no video footage that would allow an outside party to see what really happened. Cecil said there was no dash camera in the vehicle and the trooper was not equipped with a body camera.

The truth will never be known for it is now a case of a pedestrian against the word of a cop. Shame his daughter did not record the whole thing on a cell phone....