We're not The Onion! Not affiliated with them in any way! Not operated by them in any way! All the news here is real!
Posts must be:
Please also avoid duplicates.
Comments and post content must abide by the server rules for Lemmy.world and generally abstain from trollish, bigoted, ableist, or otherwise disruptive behavior that makes this community less fun for everyone.
And that’s basically it!
Ms. Thomas was scheduled to appear in court on Wednesday, but the Palm Beach County deputy who had conducted the stop requested the citation be dismissed, according to court records.
So in other words, after being confronted about his obvious mistake, he still went on to take her to court over it?
US in a nutshell
I saw the bodycam footage of this. The cop says "I saw you holding a phone in your right hand." She holds the arm up, showing the stump, smiles and says, "you wanna just call it?" And he just digs deeper; "no I don't want to call it, I saw you doing uhm..." blablabla excuses excuses citation.
Fucking ego on cops. Could've just said, "hah, clearly my mistake" I stead of power tripping and ending up all over the internet. Although bet it won't affect his police career any.
I think once they make a citation, they can't just instantly undo, because that could be a sign of bribing your way out of a ticket, so the next opportunity to reverse course on that is at court.
Can any cops or lawyers confirm? I'm definitely not an expert.
She hoped the officer would reflect on it.....
And learn from it.....
Yeah..... Those aren't traits officers have
He looks increasingly stupid as he refuses to admit he was wrong and pushes to justify himself. ACAB.
or something they WILL HIRE FOR.
This just goes to show that tickets should not be used as a revenue source
“Hand to God, you did not have your phone in your hand?”
God still has her hand... never let her have it even.
Storytime. This happened to my father when he was a cop in the 70s in Toronto. He pulled over two guys because they didn't have their seat belts on. They both were missing an arm.
He sent them on their way.
What does missing an arm have to do with not wearing the seatbelt?
Good question. In the 70s seatbelts weren't standardized yet. They weren't all like the simple click ones we have today.
You would be correct, modern ones you can connect one handed.
That only requires one hand.
Source: was driving back then, used a seat belt and had a broken arm.
Yea I don't get it either. I don't use two arms to put on a seatbelt..
You can put on a belt with one arm. Apparently the law came in in 1976 though which is surprising
"Yeah, officer, you wanna walk me through that one more time?"
Video of the stop is here: https://youtu.be/47Em_6kCLqI
The reveal is quite hilarious but the cop doubling down is just cringe.
Curiosity, could you not see the video in the article? It was right at the top for me (Though NYT does that annoying inverse in dark mode thing)
"Hand to God, do you swear you didn't have a phone in your hand?"
"Hand to God."
"Your other hand. Hand to God, do you swear you didn't have a phone in your hand?"
"Hand to God."
"Cool. Have a good day."
WHAT AN ASSHOLE!
He just didn't want to admit he was wrong. Fucking ACAB. Goddamn pigs all of them.
He could've had a little fun that day and laughed with her and it would've been so freaking wholesome. Probably gone viral for that reason instead of due to embarrassment.
Couldn't think of what else to say, guy was obviously stumped.
He just didn't want to hand it to her
Why does he keep holding his finger in front of the camera? Is it standard procedure for cops to block their body cams in case they want to do crimes?
I had heard about this before this article. This is one of those times I wish it was possible to be inside someone else's head and observe their thoughts and feelings in a moment. I think it would be really fascinating to be inside the officer's head during this interaction. If it was me, I would have turned and walked away without saying another word and hope that no one ever heard about it.
I wish it was possible to be inside someone else's head and observe their thoughts and feelings in a moment
I mean, that cop is crooked to start with. So he's probably thinking, "Oh shit. My go-to excuse for harassing people failed. It's embarrassing if I get exposed here, so how can I make this her fault?"
I always wondered how these guys make it through life.
I understand its a position of authority and an air of confidence is necessary at all times, but gods damned dude
"You had a phone in your right hand"
shows a complete lack of a right hand
"...You sure you don't have a hand?"
Makes you wonder how many other tickets in this "safety campaign" were fraudulent. My area has done these targeted enforcement days. They spend 8 hours writing tickets, then pat themselves on the back and plan to do the same thing next year. Meanwhile, the average driver is still doing 60km/h on a residential street. But at least they caught those pesky people using the shoulder at an intersection that wasn't designed for modern demand.
Why are so many people incapable of admitting that they made a mistake and handling it gracefully? Is this something we can add to the school curriculum as a skill or something?
The way our police system is structured is horrendously broken and encourages this kind of things in its officers, which can only be addressed with a complete overhaul of our approach to public safety, but even with that aside, can we please as a population put more emphasis on being able to handle making mistakes without doubling down?
Good thing they didn't go to court, she'd probably get tossed into jail for contempt once they try to swear her in.
That reminds me of a George Carlin bit where he's talking about swearing on the bible in court.
He's like "What if you use the left hand on the bible, and your right hand in your pocket? What if the bible were upside down? Does god care about our ritualistic exercises? Maybe that's good enough for god? Or will the court clerk say Sorry, wrong hand, try again? Suppose you don't have a right hand? Do you swear on the stump at the end of your arm? Or do you use the prostetic? Certainly if your real left hand wasn't good enough, then surely a wooden right hand would fail the test, right?
And he goes on and on in a way that I don't feel like typing out. Plus text doesn't do it justice. It's on youtube. Just search for George Carlin. And if the one you end up watching isn't that bit, that's fine too. All the George Carlin bits are good. Just make an evening out of it. Just watch George Carlin all night long. I promise you he does not give a shit that you're watching for free. He has a whole bit about shit he doesn't care about after he's dead. I won't spoil it. You have a fun evening ahead of you.
Cops should be penalized for citations and arrests that are thrown out or dismissed.
Make it mean something to them for when they get it wrong.
There is technically a process to do this, but it takes significant time and resources. Additionally it's likely you will experience retaliation during the process.
That'll just encourage them to lie and double down even more.
Sometimes people make mistakes. It's what they do afterwards that matters. That's even true for cops.
Except when most people make mistakes it doesn't destroy someone's lives. Cops need to be helpt at a higher standard. They wield too much power.
It should be structured so that they have to think harder about whether to wield that power in the first place.
Right now, they just get to arrest someone. Costing them potentially thousands of dollars, their job, their relationships, their car, or even their life. Cops shouldn't just be able to do that much harm and then just shrug their shoulders and say "oops." And that harm happens even if the case is dismissed.
Chances are the issue lies at the top of the leadership structure
Rule #1 for cops - you are never wrong.
What an asshole.
Reminds me when a PCSO (UK police community support officer) knocked on my window and told me off for driving while on my phone. I was literally just scratching my ear. Also, I had managed to forget my phone at home when having to visit a clients office and didn't have time to go back and get it - I was in the car grabbing a quick lunch. I was already annoyed with myself anyway so was livid after that. Told them you shouldn't go around accusing people of things unless you can actually see it. They just doubled down and walked off without apologising or anything.
US, I almost got a ticket for not wearing my seatbelt because when I saw the cop I mindlessly checked to see if I was wearing it. After that I do that check without moving my hand. Cops are the worst.
A Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman said the department was reviewing the deputy’s conduct.
🤮