Best Cop Ever

Jon Rowe

Jon Rowe is a full Professor of Business at Mercer County Community College, where he teaches business, law, and legal issues relating to politics. Of course, his views do not necessarily represent those of his employer.

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8 Responses

  1. Glyph says:

    Question: I agree this cop handled things exceedingly-well, and I agree the driver is probably not neurotypical in some way.

    That said: had the officer used the motorist’s behavior as an excuse for escalation (field sobriety test, or search of the auto or the person), would the courts consider that justifiable or not? The motorist’s manic demeanor could also be seen as at least potentially-indicative of some sort of intoxication, since it is way over-the-top emotionally from the standard frustration of a traffic stop. To tie it back to an earlier post of yours, the guy almost seems like a character from the Jerky Boys prank calls.Report

    • Jon Rowe in reply to Glyph says:

      LOL. Love the tie back.Report

    • zic in reply to Glyph says:

      I’ve seen guys driven into financial panic attacks just like that.

      The cop may have handled that well by some standards, but he was dead emotionally, almost robotic. I have some issues with that. What really interested me is that the driver did not, in any way, threaten the cop; he vented spleen about the system he felt trapped in.

      I see a lot of this kind of poverty; it is still the Maine version of the Ferguson report; though there are probably others. You can’t afford the break light, the insurance, whatever, get pulled over, and it will send your life into the kind of chaos that triggers panic attacks like these.Report

      • greginak in reply to zic says:

        That does assume he really was poor and not just throwing a poo fit to get out of a ticket. I’ve known some people with money really whip up a lie storm about how poor they were to save a little bit of money.Report

        • zic in reply to greginak says:

          I suspect the whole thing’s faked; I can’t find when ME cops started using dash cams. News articles as recent as 2013 talk of dash-cams as ‘new tech,’ it’s unclear if it’s updated tech or first adoption of the technology. But this is July, 1992, and Maine is like the safest state, and we’re really, really stingy; cops didn’t get fancy gear until the Patriot Act funneled money into local PDs to turn them into First Responders for the newly-formed Dept. of Homeland Security.

          That, plus the rant with “Clinton inauguration.” July 1992? The election’s not going to be held until November, inauguration in Jan, 1993. Plus with that rant, he’d have been a Perot man. Perot got something like 30% of the vote here that year.Report

  2. Damon says:

    I’ve seen this. It was on some TV show IIRC a while back, and the driver just looses it. Sadly, now, the driver’s behavior would have probably gotten him tazed or shot.Report

  3. greginak says:

    Good for the cop. He handled that well and didn’t make bad situation worse. I’ve seen that clip before on youtube and it is a doozy. Heck i’m a white middle age guy and i can’t imagine calling a cop an asshole but not getting in a world of shit for it. I have to admit if was the cop i might have followed the guy at a distance to see how he drove. The driver might have actually been so far out of it he wasn’t safe.Report

  4. veronica d says:

    I’ve seen this before, a few times.

    I’m very glad the officer handled himself well. I’m very glad no one was hurt.Report