Illegal traffic stop and police threats

[nomad4dixie]

A few weeks ago I was stopped by a totally out of control Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police officer. Here's the story. I was driving my truck to my boss's house and had one of my co-workers with me in the passenger seat. I came upon a small fender bender accident in which a van was parked in a left turn lane and had no apparent damage. I witnessed 2 vehicles ahead of me trying to get around this vehicle and both nearly had accidents because this is a very busy intersection. There was a CMPD car pulled over behind 2 other vehicles on the side road at this intersection and the officer was in his car doing paperwork and again, no cars showed any apparent damage other than a few small dents. There were several civilians standing around on the corner that were apparently drivers of the vehicles. Now, NC law states that if you have a minor traffic accident and no one is injured and the vehicles are drivable you are REQUIRED by law to move them ASAP from the traffic lanes. As I made a left turn and passed the civilians, I lowered my window on my vehicle and said "how about moving the van?". I proceeded on about 1/2 mile along a residential street with a 35 mph posted speed limit. Well, to my surprise here comes that officer that was stopped doing the accident investigation just flying up behind my truck and did not turn on his blue lights but just hit his "yelp" siren and proceeded to pull me over! He stormed out of his vehicle and came up to my door and was literally spitting he was so mad. He proceeded to call for backup and then told me to give him my license and registration, not ask mind you. He was yelling at the top of his lungs at me threatening to arrest me for hindering and obstructing him. I was not allowed to get in any sort of a statement and I did not get confrontational AT ALL. He proceeded to tell me at least 3 times that he was going to arrest me. I finally politely stated that I was only concerned about possible accidents on the busy street and that I was aware of the NC statues requiring the vehicles to move. At this he became even more enraged. He told me that I didn't know anything about the law, HE was the law. His exact quote was "I'm the law, me, not you. I'm the law! You don't know squat about the law. I'm the law". Yes, he repeated himself 3 times and very loudly. He proceeded to run my tag and license and of course to his dismay found nothing to cite me for. About this time his backup arrived. He proceded to return to my door and ordered me to "get out of that truck". I did so and immediately closed the door, stepped to my left, backed up against the truck and proceeded to clasp my hands in front of my body at my waist so as to not give him any indication of provocation. He again lit into a tirade and several more times threatened me with arrest. He even asked my passenger if he had a valid license so that he could drive my vehicle. Now during this whole encounter, I never argued or disputed anything he said. I repeated to him that if my comments upset him then I apologize. He told me I wasn't sorry enough and that I could think about it in jail. I continued to try to be sincere in appologizing but it was difficult since I knew he was out of bounds. During this stop I noticed a lapel microphone on his person so I was thinking "good, this is on video". Guess what, he didn't turn on his video (CMPD informed me that this was a hard fast policy that on ALL stops the video must be turned on). Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he gave me my license and reg. back and let me go, but not before he made one final threat that he "had my info and may yet file charges on me".
As a bit of background, what he didn't know was that I have participated in at least 45 police ride-alongs with my local police dept. and I DO know quite a bit about the law. I have also graduated twice from our local Citizen's Police Accademy. I as so well know by my local police dept. that I can walk in the door and I'm immediately invited into their secure areas, up to and including the chief's office. I am a fervent police supporter but I have opened a formal complaint with the CMPD Internal Affairs regarding this action. Since I have a witness, they will probably have to take it more seroiously than they normally would have. I let them know that if they couldn't handle this problem to my satisfaction I would be forced to retain legal counsel. After informing them as to my background I let them know that I knew what this officer was doing. He ordered me out of my vehicle and got right up in my face and "went off" on me in an effort to push me into any sort of sudden movement or action that he could then use as resisting arrest and I would have then been cuffed and booked and all for nothing. I didn NOTHING illegal and the officer left and active accident investigation in the middle of a busy intersection to chase me down and harrass and intimidate me.

 

[NYClex]

I am sorry to hear what happened. Before I went to law school I worked for a couple of years as a police officer and later as supervisor in a department of almost 40,000 men and women. I have seen this happen, too. Cops are in a high stress job and totally resent any "civilian" trying to give them advice or teach them how to do their job better. This actually is not exclusive with cops. I have seen judges treat lawyers this way, doctors treat nurses or patiients this way, salespersons treat customers and so on. I would say, it happens in every job.

Yet it is in fact inexcusable.

The good news is: Those are exceptions. And there is a system to deal with it. You did the right thing, staying polite and defensive, and you filed a complaint.

Cops who try to do their job the correct way don't like these nutcases either. As partners they are very unreliable and tend to drag you into problems.

With your connections to the PD I think you will stay on the ball and make sure that the officer will be reprimanded. That's good.