A video that captured the brutal arrest of a Black college student pulled from his car and beaten by officers in Florida has led to an investigation and calls for motorists to consider protecting themselves by placing a camera inside their vehicles.
The footage shows that William McNeil Jr., 22, was sitting in the driver’s seat, asking to speak to the Jacksonville deputies’ supervisor, when authorities broke his window, punched him in the face, pulled him from the vehicle, punched him again and threw him to the ground.
Please show me some evidence of an illigal stop leading to an arrest and conviction on the charge of the original stop,or failure to ID.
You’re defining this as an illegal stop. It was not, in the legal terminology, an illegal stop. That’s part of where your confusion is coming in, I think.
I’m happy to find you one of these bodycam YouTube videos of someone failing to ID and getting their window busted out, and then look up the records and see if they actually got convicted of the failure to ID (or obstruction or whatever the statute is where they are). It may take me until later today. Would that influence you, if I found that?
You don’t believe in illegal stops.
Is driving without headlights in daytime illigal in Florida? That is the stated reason for the stop. If that is not in fact, illigal, then the stop is illigal. Regardless if the officer thinks it’s illigal.
As an analogy, lets say an officer stopped you for wearing your backpack on your left shoulder, which he says is in violation of some ordinance. Is that a legal stop?
And to answer yoir question, if you find footage where the initial stop was deemed unconstitutional, but the subsequent conviction fir failing to ID stands, I will accept that I am wrong.
https://www.hg.org/legal-articles/what-is-an-unlawful-police-stop-23464
If the cop sees you (allegedly) not wearing your seat belt, and then pulls you over for a seat belt violation, that’s a legal stop. I sort of agree with you that the headlights thing is bullshit (and briefly looking at the internet I think you’re right). For all I know the officer realized that the headlights was bullshit, and randomly added in the seat belt thing. But, regardless, him saying the issue was the seat belt is going to hold up in court completely, and so refusing to ID based on that is going to get you in trouble. Your lawyer is going to have a hell of a time making that argument, especially if you then obstructed and resisted arrest.
IDK where this “if I don’t agree, then I need to physically resist the cops, because it’ll be okay” thinking came from, but that’s not how it works legally. That’s part of why I am taking time to disagree with this, because people do get busted for crimes because of listening to what the internet told them.
What was a stop where the initial stop was even deemed unconstitutional? If I knew that, then I might be able to answer you. Except for some landmark cases, I don’t really know of it happening. I feel like that doesn’t happen very often. I feel like people getting charged for failing to ID is very common (including where they are trying to argue on the side of the road that the stop is improper in some way, and that’s why they are failing to ID and it’s okay.) That’s sort of my point.
Well, I watch the video when it camentonlohht a fewndays ago, I don’t remember anything about the aeatbelt. But the reason the officer gave to the driver was driving without headlights in inclement weather, which would only be a violation if the weather were inclement, which it wasn’t, and the driver states that. The officer doesn’t get to change his mind as to the reason for the stop, thats well established in law.
As to physically resisting, the driver did not physically resist, he passively resisted, refusing to unlock the car door andnexit the vehicle. He didn’t at any point lay hands on the officers.
A stop where the initial stop was deemed unconstitutional: Here’s one . The first one on YouTube. I admit I haven’t watched this one, but then same judge is on YouTube presiding over dozens of similar cases, and there are many other similar videos.
A few crucial points you are missing:
There’s absolutely no legal obligation for the cops to answer any of your questions. Feel free to ask them anything you want, but they don’t need to answer. Further, they can lie to you about why they pulled you over. I’ve seen videos where they were stopping an armed violent offender known for resisting arrest for their bigger crimes. So the cop pulls them over and wants to keep them calm so they only tell them something like seat belt or light violation. Then get them out of the car so they can’t reach for hidden weapons. And YES there are plenty of videos of people reacting innocently asking the same questions this guy asked only to suddenly pull a gun or something.
I’m sure all states have some law that requires you show your license when pulled over (mine definitely does) . Even for flimsy victimless traffic violations. Even if you absolutely are wearing your seat belt and had video evidence to corroborate, you would still need to show your license if pulled over for a seat belt violation. It doesn’t matter that you are innocent. The arguments you’d make on the side of the road are the exact same ones guilty people make. They’ll swear up and down they were wearing their seat belt knowing they weren’t. Nothing differentiates them from the innocent on the side of the road.
You keep harping about it not truly being inclement weather, but that doesn’t matter. Even without the seat belt issue included, they are legally allowed to come up with RAS after the stop. That’s one I personally think is utter bullshit but it doesn’t change the fact it’s legal. After all of this if it turns out he wasn’t guilty of the other infractions but they figured out his registration was expired, they can just swap the citation to that even if that wasn’t considered until after the stop was done.
This is not supposed to come off as defending cops. I’m all for legally resisting as much as you can, but this wasn’t the case here. This was one to fight later in court. This doesn’t further the cause of police accountability. This just sets it back and is one more example of the general public being woefully ignorant of the law that strengthens police resistance to positive change.