The worst thing you can do when you get pulled over is to get out of the car. I'll never understand why people do this. Just turn your engine off, turn your interior light on (if it's dark outside) and put your hands on the steering wheel. I mean, I learned this 30 years ago in driver ed.Â
@imadrummer2k:
Come on, there are worst things you can do than get out of the car. I'll go as far to say that getting out of the car is not even unreasonable. In fact, it's understandable, particularly if someone had never been instructed not to get out a car if pulled over. That instruction normally applies when pulling over on a street. It's just safer for the driver to stay in the vehicle.
A parking lot in a shopping center is a safer location and most likely has many cameras. An innocent person should want all of their actions captured on video. In a parking lot, being pulled over for a traffic violation, a driver may find it completely reasonable to exit the vehicle and show the officer she is not a threat. The video captures her doing just that.
She shows compliance by bringing the car to a stop in a parking lot. She exited the vehicle and took a few steps to the rear of the vehicle with both hands in clear view for the officer to see she is unarmed (a gesture that normally conveys no ill intent). This is completely reasonable and not threatening in the least. We don't hear audio, but she does return to the vehicle. This is another example of full compliance, if he directed her to do it.
The cop then comes into the scene with handcuffs already out, approaches her, and appears to try to grab her arm to cuff her. We don't hear any verbal exchanges that might have taken place. There is nothing that I see in the video that seems to justify arrest at this point. That justification may certainly have come off camera. Judging by video alone, it seemed unwise and unjustified to come out of his car and approach her with cuffs already in hand. Any citizen experiencing only what we see in the video would know at this point that an arrest is not justified just because you exit your vehicle, display empty hands, and return to your car if all you did to get pulled over was cross a center line.
I don't know why he appears to go for her arm as she pivots her torso away (non-threatening, but it is resistance). But at that moment he seems to change his mind from deciding to cuff her to not cuffing her.
He appears to call for backup as she makes her call. She can be heard asking for another officer to be sent to the scene and the cop is close enough to hear her request. He strangely then repouches his cuffs, seemingly signaling that now no arrest is imminent. He clearly did not assess this to be a dangerous situation at this time. He doesn't even have a defensive posture at this time. He appears to have successfully de-escalated at this point.
My opinion is the woman did not react unreasonably and the cop reacted bizarrely, but not unlawfully. My guess is the officer was directed to arrest her after his decision not to, based on his description of her behavior. 4951