There are lots of ways to be free. I’d like to make the pitch that one of the easiest route is to get in the habit of making life a royal pain in the ass to those who would hassle you. That’s what inspired me about the video below.
The setup is simple. A law abiding trucker is traveling down the road when he’s passed like he’s standing still by a cop without lights on and a phone held to his ear. That’s two no nos. Most of us would let it go, then later bitch about how cops are abusing their authority. Not this guy.
The trucker honks the horn at the cop and the cop in a bout of “respect my authority” pulls him over and threatens a ticket for improper horn use (which is apparently a thing). Then the cop starts looking for minor infractions; trucking hours of service, medical card, etc… The trucker handles all this with more class than I. Plus he’s got his paperwork in order and was obviously ready for the interaction; well done sir.
As the cop stomps away from the cab with a sheaf of paperwork the trucker politely mentions “it’s OK I’ve got it all on my dash cam”. A few minutes later cop guy comes back with an entirely new attitude.
Amazing that! Perhaps a whole lot of obstreperous citizens with hand held video might turn the tide from cops back to “peace officers”. One can hope.
Enjoy the short version from a news show:
Or the longer version I found first:
Hat tip to Ace of Spades and Conservative Hideout 2.0.
Props to the trucker and perhaps even to the cop. Maybe it was the “you’re being recorded” thing, maybe it was the speech his chief gave him due to all this recent Ferguson / Eric Garner / et al anti-LEO publicity, or maybe the cop had a moment of introspection, realized he was in the wrong, swallowed his ego and turned over a proverbial new leaf?
There is a non-zero possibility that the police officer went back to his cruiser and, in a moment of spiritual realization, decided to back down. I’d like to line in a world where that’s the default setting. However I find it vastly more likely that recording played a major role in his decision making process.
The best that can be said is that asshattery was initiated but it came to a full stop before things went full apeshit. That’s always a good thing.
Note: this event happened before Ferguson/Garner.
I love that. Its a remarkable bit of luck though, since they just this year turned over an archaic wiretapping law that was used to harass citizens for recording police. And! Are in the process of enacting an even stronger one.
http://thegrio.com/2014/12/10/illinois-law-would-make-recording-the-police-a-felony/
To quite honest the trucker is VERY fortunate the cop upon hearing about the dash cam did not
arrest said trucker and make said camera disappear. My advice these days is if you want to play that game either have the video uploaded automatically and LIVE to the internet where they can’t delete it OR to have two cameras. One they can find easily and a second one to record the compounding of their criminality by destruction of evidence. Of course usefulness of said video is predicated on the honesty of the DA and judges involved….and the box score in that game isn’t pretty when it comes to civil rights.
To quote a Lynyrd Skynyrd song:
“You got that right“
Dan… I have seen stories in the last couple years where incidents were uploaded to youtube and the cops then tried to make it a federal issue because it immediately crosses state lines. Seems like nowadays, video is meaningless anyway, and in fact, you’re lucky if you don’t get your ass kicked or arrested for taking video. So much for all that “freedom” bs. Now we have DHS, so don’t worry… if you’re not doing anything wrong, you don’t have anything to worry about – Komrade!
Given the choice between having a video and not having a video I’d always go for the former.
One can hear the emergency vehicles passing. I have to wonder…
????
you do KNOW a setup..
myself? I would have arrested him. but this policeman did not follow correct procedure.
Both were in the wrong..and the one LOOKING for trouble is the one who is wrong.
The one in the wrong is the one who used lights, a police cruiser, and a badge when they weren’t needed, justified, or legal. As for the trucker, there’s an old saying “if you don’t bring none there won’t be none.” If there were a couple million truckers like him out there the freeways would be patrolled by folks who were careful in how they used their authority.
That said, what I liked most is that two egos collided and instead of leading to mayhem they both jointly backed off and behaved well… especially the one with the badge.