Title: Lt. Gov Candidate Assaulted after Police Throw a Tantrum, Cops Left his Girlfriend Stranded Source:
Free Thought Project URL Source:http://thefreethoughtproject.com/lt ... asserting-rights-traffic-stop/ Published:Mar 20, 2015 Author:Matt Agorist Post Date:2015-03-20 09:44:34 by Deckard Keywords:None Views:4356 Comments:13
Holmes County, MS — A candidate for Lieutenant Governor, who’s outspoken about holding police accountable, says he was targeted by Mississippi police.
Lt. Governor candidate, Jelani Barr, got the entire incident on video too.
In an interview with WAPT, Barr claimed that troopers mistreated him after pulling him over for speeding in Homes County.
“He said that he knew me and that he knew who I was and what I was about,” Barr said.
Barr said that the officers who pulled him over refused to tell him why he was stopped, so for his safety he refused to get out of the car.
“They didn’t give me probable cause and told me to step out again. I was like, ‘No sir, I do not feel safe,” Barr said.
“When he encountered the vehicle speeding, that was your probable cause to stop the vehicle,” Mississippi Highway Patrol spokesman Tony Dunn said.
Dunn is right saying that they had probable cause to stop the vehicle, but speeding was not the reason Barr was forced from the car and thrown to the ground.
In the video, we can hear the officer say the reason Barr was thrown to the ground and arrested. It was because the trooper thought that Barr was being a “smart-butt.”
Barr’s girlfriend, Adrienne Hicks, kept filming after Barr was taken.
Hicks: Sir, sir?
Trooper: I’ll talk to you in a second.
Hicks: Sir?
Trooper: There is nothing to talk about, nothing to talk about. Just like you sitting there recording, I wear a body (microphone), and my camera is rolling. I stopped you guys for speeding. This is as far as he let his window down. I said I need to smell inside your vehicle. He told me what I could not do and what he wasn’t going to do and what I couldn’t do. That’s why he’s out of the car — for being a smart butt.
Hicks: But you threw him.
Trooper: Be quiet, ma’am.
The trooper essentially threw a temper tantrum because Barr chose not to roll his window down all the way. Because of the trooper’s tantrum, Barr was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and non-compliance, on top of the speeding ticket.
Not only was Barr taken into custody, but police impounded his vehicle and left his girlfriend on the side of the road.
Hicks said troopers pulled her luggage out of the car, impounded the vehicle and left her stranded.
“You’re taking my car to some tow truck. I said, ‘How am I supposed to get home?’ He said, ‘Do you want to be arrested, too?’ and I said, ‘No sir, but I don’t want to be left in a town where I don’t live,” Hicks said.
Trooper Dunn told WAPT that their troopers can’t take chances with a routine traffic stop.
“Our guys, they have families, and they want to go home to their families every night,” he said.
Apparently, for their own safety, these troopers escalated a routine revenue collection stop for a speeding ticket into a violent confrontation. So they could make it home to their families, they left a man in jail and a woman on the side of the road in a town which she does not live. Very honorable.
After these troopers made it home to their families that night, did they explain to their wives and children how they left an innocent woman stranded on the side of the road?
Barr said that the officers who pulled him over refused to tell him why he was stopped, so for his safety he refused to get out of the car.
His first mistake. You don't get to refuse, especially any Highway Patrol and it doesn't matter whether you "feel" safe or not.
And this was a black-on-black arrest. Both MHPs were black as was the speeder. So, thankfully, no one has to burn down Ferguson again.
I wouldn't agree with tossing the guy to the ground when he got out, even if he was annoying the cops. Don't rough up the nonviolent citizens.
Interesting example of passenger recording and cops recording. Hopefully this will become more standard with citizens and cops alike routinely expecting to be recorded by both parties. Judges and juries and police supervisors won't be presented with he-says-he-says cases of alleged abuse.
