|
The detainment of Lt. Caron Nazario
Allahpundit via HotAir
The good news about this incident, unlike most other clips of police traffic stops that go viral, is that no one dies. In fact, no one was arrested: Caron Nazario, the officer who was pulled over and then pepper-sprayed, was let go at the scene. The video is circulating because Nazario filed a lawsuit in Virginia this week accusing the two officers of having violated his constitutional rights by treating him the way they did. I watched it before I read up on what happened and was struck by how aggro the cops were from the start. What could Nazario have done behind the wheel to freak them out so much that they had guns drawn when he pulled over? He’s so calm when he finally speaks with them that he seems almost sedate. But there’s a reason for that, it turns out, and it’s not that Nazario is preternaturally chill. He’s clearly scared out of his wits that one of these amped-up cops is going to flinch and blow him away by misinterpreting something he’s doing as threatening. It’s happened before, as I’m sure he’s aware. Let’s pause here so you can watch the clip. The first 90 seconds are just footage from inside the police cruiser while they’re in pursuit; the encounter begins at around 1:30. ...Sounds like they thought they were in pursuit of a stolen vehicle. A car thief in a situation like that, on the brink of being caught, might panic at the prospect and do something desperate to try to evade arrest. There are problems with that explanation, though. First, according to the lawsuit, Nazario’s car didn’t lack rear plates. It was a new car and had a temporary plate taped to the back window, which the cops should have been able to see as they got closer. Nazario wasn’t really "eluding" police either. Crocker’s own report admitted that he was traveling at low speed; this wasn’t a chase at 100 mph with the driver frantically trying to outrace police. The reason Nazario didn’t pull over immediately, it seems, is that he didn’t want his encounter with the cops to happen on a poorly lit roadside — a not uncommon response according to one of the cops involved: ...Some cohort of people believes that when a police officer gives you an order, reasonable or not, you obey that order and if you don’t then anything that happens to you is your own fault. That was my expression when I lived in USA (well, New Mexico actually, but it's almost the same. 😊 Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2021-04-12 |
|
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=599312 |