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    The Alvin Greene DreamHudson Hongo
    7/21/15 10:12pm

    Yep, this is so fucking classic. This guy is all “nice” up until the moment he’s faced with the slightest bit of annoyance from the person he pulls over. Bland didn’t say or do anything wrong once stopped, didn’t present any sort of threat, so the cop gins up a fucking pretext (telling her to put out the cigarette) for escalating shit. I mean, how does this make anybody safer? It doesn’t make the cop safer. It doesn’t make Bland safer. It doesn’t make anybody else in the area safer. The fact that cops think their job is to ensure they leave with the citizen’s respect (either voluntary or by force) is what’s fucking wrong with policing in America. Just give the annoyed lady her fucking ticket and be on your way. Don’t fucking goad people into arrest-able positions.

    How much you wanna bet, by the way, that the first woman he pulled over was white?

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      TeenerThe Alvin Greene Dream
      7/21/15 10:50pm

      The first woman is probably black because she says she’s a student at the historically black college.

      At first I thought the cop seemed nice, but then it seemed strange that a State trooper was just prowling a campus looking to give out traffic warnings. I guess it’s a control thing.

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      noonahThe Alvin Greene Dream
      7/21/15 10:54pm

      the cop gins up a fucking pretext (telling her to put out the cigarette) for escalating shit.

      Ugghhh I caught this too. Cop asks is she ok, you seem agitated. She responds, letting him know exactly why she seems agitated. Yea, she’s upset, and yea, it’s clear in her tone and delivery when she answers his question. Clearly it pissed him off and he just instinctively tests her boundaries with what looks to be on the surface an *innocent* request (cigarette)-in reality totally unnecessary and a manipulative power move to further antagonize her. He knew (as all good cops&bullies do) she was feeling targeted, and how to take her emotions to the next level so he could explode the way he did.

      Gross, gross, gross. I listened to video w headphones and his screaming at her to get out of the car gave me goosebumps.

      I don’t know what happened in that cell but I see exactly how it all went down at that stop. Cop played an undeniable role in and was like 99% responsible for escalating the situation.

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    TayTayTrutherHudson Hongo
    7/21/15 9:37pm

    Whenever I get frustrated that it took Bill Cosby’s sworn deposition to believe 48 women, I think of how it takes dashboard cameras for folks to finally start believing all of us black people. This is our reality. Police are able to escalate shit knowing their fellow citizens will be all, “Was she belligerent?” They can arrest us on some bullshit and folks will be, “If you didn’t do what you were doing, you wouldn’t have been arrested.” They can summarily execute us in broad daylight and the good citizens of America will bend over backwards to see what way we were culpable for our own murder. This is what it’s like across this country. Always HAS been like this. Thank the lord for technology. Folks can play first person negro and see how it feels.

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      NewYorkCynicTayTayTruther
      7/21/15 9:54pm

      White guy here. To my discredit, it took me working in a black/immigrant community and seeing how the cops treat the people that I work with for me to get it. And I use the phrase ‘get it’ loosely. I think you have to be on the receiving end of that abuse to truly ‘get it’. Nowadays I’d say says it’s more accurate to state that I ‘believe it’. And I hope videos like this will be helpful in showing other white people who don’t have the (mis)fortune of seeing first hand that these abuses actually exist.

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      kasedaseTayTayTruther
      7/21/15 10:01pm

      There are dash cams and these people still get away with this shit and people still say oh she deserved it

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    Missypoo50Hudson Hongo
    7/21/15 9:32pm

    Watching this video made my stomach turn.

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      1llamarampageMissypoo50
      7/21/15 9:34pm

      I haven’t been able to. I’ve read all the descriptions I could find, and those alone are enough to induce nausea. The thought of seeing this woman’s last free minutes and the violence she endured is just too much from me.

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      aranxa1Missypoo50
      7/21/15 9:46pm

      I won’t watch, I can’t. This is not my country. No. This is not what We are. We need to make it stop.

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    NewYorkCynicHudson Hongo
    7/21/15 9:44pm

    For anyone who doesn’t want to scroll through the whole hour or so of footage, jump to about 8:30 for the relevant portion.

    Also, someone should have told this officer beforehand that (very mild) disrespect is not a crime.

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      cheerful_exgirlfriendNewYorkCynic
      7/21/15 10:03pm

      At 30:20 when he’s talking to someone on the phone (supervisor?? union rep??) he says “she wouldn’t even look me in the eye” like that is an arrestable offense. He also gives a whole song and dance about how he was so respectful and tried and tried to deescalate .

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      UncleCCClaudiusNewYorkCynic
      7/21/15 10:05pm

      You don’t want to test that “mild disrespect” theory in the wild. Cops have gotten so twitchy and fragile.

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    tjwHudson Hongo
    7/21/15 9:39pm

    Watching this video, I don’t see how you could refuse to charge this officer with false arrest. Smoking a cigarette in your own car is not against the law, nor is contempt of cop. His order for her step out of her car was completlely unlawful as was the arrest that followed. This was false arrest from the beginning and anything that followed was the fault of the illegally arresting officer.

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      dronesandgroanstjw
      7/22/15 7:51am

      I don’t think this wasn’t a cop getting pissed off because she wasn’t showing him respect—but it wasn’t unlawful to ask her to step outside the car. Once you’ve been pulled over, the police automatically have the right to have you get out of the car, they don’t need a reason.

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      tjwdronesandgroans
      7/22/15 9:26am

      I read Pennsyvania v Mimms and it doesn't say you can order somebody out of the car for any reason, just that you can do it for the safety of the officer. The officer clear does not believe the situation is unsafe, he's just being a dick.

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    babiesmakinbabiesHudson Hongo
    7/21/15 9:55pm

    It just blows my mind that some white people get all pissy when blacks talk about how cops treat them. The funny thing is that cops treat white people like shit too. But, as soon as black people say anything about cops, these white people immediately go nuclear and bring out every little gripe about race. Hey, dummies, it happens to white people as well. It’s a totally irrational reaction. It’s a topic that both whites and blacks should be in agreement on, but it’s like some whites just can’t be on the same side as blacks, even when it goes against their own interests.

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      flamingolingobabiesmakinbabies
      7/21/15 10:27pm

      but it’s like some whites just can’t be on the same side as blacks, even when it goes against their own interests.

      You just described the Republican Party’s electoral strategy.

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    fatpretzelHudson Hongo
    7/21/15 10:05pm

    I understand that as a whole, black people get treated differently by police than white people and failure to extinguish a cigarette doesn’t break any crime. But holy shit, this woman just does everything she can to provoke this cop. It sounds like if she had just treated him with the same respect that he had been giving her up until that point, she was at worst, going to be 15 minutes late for her next appointment.

    I like to think that I am a pretty calm guy in high pressure situations, but I’m not sure that I could have kept my temper in check dealing with this woman. Every time he gives her a command, she just responds by sending more and more invective.

    It is unfortunate that she lost her life whether at her own hand or by some nefarious conspiracy. It seems that the only way that this could have been avoided is if people on both sides of the equation learn to treat each other with respect.

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      Mok, the Magic Manfatpretzel
      7/21/15 10:09pm

      No, and fuck you.

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      fatpretzelMok, the Magic Man
      7/21/15 10:14pm

      Is the “fuck you” because I thought we could all treat each other with respect? Please elucidate.

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    Book AkiHudson Hongo
    7/21/15 9:43pm

    So the “they have a tough job” thing should hold true. After all, inbound call center operators are allowed to break some windshields once a while, because they have a stressful job. Or people who work at juvenile detention centers- they can kick a cat occasionally. Special ed teachers are allowed to smoke on planes and also firefighters can sell up to 10 units of peyote per month.

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      Mok, the Magic ManBook Aki
      7/21/15 10:07pm

      And lumberjacks are straight-up allowed to kill a motherfucker with a chainsaw when they’ve had a particularly hard day.

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      Book AkiMok, the Magic Man
      7/21/15 10:14pm

      IT”S A THANKLESS AND STRESFULL JOB! WHO ARE YOU GONNA CALL WHEN YOU NEED SOME PAPER PRODUCTS? A CRACKHEAD!?

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    iusedtobesomeoneHudson Hongo
    7/21/15 9:40pm

    She has to step out of the car for smoking?

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      Búho se Pierdeiusedtobesomeone
      7/21/15 9:44pm

      She has to step out of the car for smoking while black.

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      NewYorkCynicBúho se Pierde
      7/21/15 9:46pm

      SWB, to be technical.

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    the actual moonHudson Hongo
    7/21/15 9:33pm

    i keep thinking that each high profile black death will be the one that turns the tide in this country...

    anymore i have no idea what it will take

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      Red_Hot_Riderthe actual moon
      7/21/15 9:45pm

      Well this one is different because she killed herself in jail. The worst thing the cop did was unlawfully arrest her, he didn’t shoot her from behind.

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      LandoSystemthe actual moon
      7/21/15 9:51pm

      I’m on your side, but let’s face it: Shooting up a schoolroom full of children didn’t change a damned thing. I’m not about to hold my breath on this, either. It sucks.

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