04-12-2021, 02:33 PM
(04-12-2021, 02:11 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: From the story it appears the stop was initiated because there was no visible rear plate. As to why they initiated a felony stop, the story doesn't say.
The plate was not visible on the un-lit road, however, the temporary plate is clearly visible in the rear window in the lit gas station. They radioed in driving without a plate and tinted windows. He followed that up with an eluding communication and made the self-determination of a "high-risk stop", which escalated this through his own assumptions. At no point does he ever indicate the driver is a danger to the public, driving erratic, or any other behavior that would indicate the need to draw a weapon immediately when exiting a vehicle. The officer's own actions and assumptions escalated the situation, and those assumptions were incorrect.
As I pointed out early in this thread, an officer is 5x more likely to die on the side of the road during a stop from being struck than by the person they stopped. If it became a more widely accepted practice to navigate to safer locations for stops we'd save lives, and could potentially bring down the tension in these situations in general. I know an uncle of mine used to say night stops were the absolute worst part of the job because of the unknown and lack of visibility.
