@VeryHappy I dont know why it was confusing. Clearly he tells him to unbuckle his seatbelt and shoots him dead seconds later. The officer couldnt have been scared for his life, because mr. Dubose, had reached in the glove box, and under the seat looking for his license, and Tensing didnt seem concerned. As I mentioned previously, the prosecutor is VERY pro police, and these were his words,
“I’ve been doing this for over 30 years. This is the most asinine act I’ve ever seen a police officer make – totally unwarranted,” ,. “It’s an absolute tragedy in the year 2015 that anyone would behave in this manner. It was senseless.”
“He wasn’t dealing with someone who was wanted for murder,” he said. “He was dealing with someone who didn’t have a front license plate. This was, in the vernacular, a pretty chicken-crap stop.”
@Niquii77 There are so many Ohioans that dont have front plates. Basically the cops dont bother you. I personally hate the way they look on luxury or nicer cars, so I havent had one in probably 6 years. Having said that, college police in Ohio are NOTORIOUS ticketing students, especially at UC and Ohio State, I always made sure my kids had them on their cars, because one attended school in Ohio and visited Ohio State frequently.
I have to say, when he reached for the glove compartment, I closed my eyes because I thought THAT was where he would shoot him. I could see a cop being scared about a guy pulled over reaching for the glove compartment, but he didn’t seem fazed by that at all. The whole thing is just weird and sad.
@partyof5 Oh, I understand. Florida doesn’t require front license plates so my question was out of curiosity. In the past our luxury cars have had the holes already drilled, but the newer ones don’t have the placing for them. Never gave it much thought until now!
How common is it for a university to have its own armed police force? Do they have power off-campus to make traffic stops?
I remember cops when I was in college but I don’t remember if they were armed. I certainly don’t recall ever seeing a university cop make a traffic stop off campus.
D2 got pulled over by campus police because he thought she was a child driving a big car. She is short and petite, true, but she was incredibly indignant about it, since she hadn’t done anything wrong. He told her he thought she was about 12 or 13, and she showed him her license, which reveals that she is 21. She said she was sure he thought it was a fake, and that frustrated her even more.
But she is a beautiful blonde haired white woman with big blue eyes and long dark lashes. Don’t think she would ever be treated the way this completely innocent young man was, and it’s just unacceptable that this man lost his life after having been guilty of only the most minor of transgressions. It just boggles the mind.
@2collegewego UC has its own officers, they are not city of cincinnati officers. A while back they made some sort of agreement with the city that would allow them to start patrolling outside of the university proper, but in the neighboring area.
Thank goodness for videocams or the truth would never be known (even if sadly most of these cops don’t get indicted, never mind convicted.)
We are required to have front and back license plates in NY and every car has them - even brand new models. Why do people in these other states which have that requirement think it’s okay to break the law?
@emilybee I guess you have never broken the law??? You always drive under the limit?? You always follow every law? I dont keep a front plate for the reasons I listed above. If I get a ticket then thats my bad, and Im fully capable of paying for said ticket. As I said, thousands of Ohioans dont have front plates because typically the cops dont enforce it.
The last time I broke any law was when I was in college 40 years ago.
I just find it astonishing that so many people break that particular law. No one in NY would even think of doing that. Also, having both a front & back plate helps police when they are looking for a particular car and especially when an Amber Alert is issued.
Emilybee, and you never jaywalk? Native New Yorker here. I agree that it’s pretty unheard of in NY not to have a front license plate but I’ve never met a New Yorker who hasn’t jaywalked. Anyway, it’s neither here nor there. The guy wasn’t shot because he didn’t have a front license plate. He was shot for no reason. That license plate thing is seen a lot in Texas and California too. My impression is it’s so common it can’t possibly be enforced regularly. In NY, you wouldn’t get very far if you were missing a license plate.
No, I don’t jaywalk - not even when I am in the city. When walking In my town I cross at the crosswalks - where it is the law that a car must stop for you. I also go to the corner and press the walk button and wait for the signal that I can go.
Yes, I know he wasn’t shot because of that but it gave a reason to the cop to pull him over.
If I get pulled over, I double make sure I keep my hands up on top of steering wheel in sight so cop can see them easily when he first looks in . I grab my drivers license out of purse, and registration and proof of insurance from glove box, before the cop first walks up to my window and keep them visible for him in my hands on top of steering wheel. Everyone is itchy at a traffic stop…both cop and driver. If a cop sees a driver’s hand move quickly, or suddenly reach for something, he may get spooked and start shooting…not saying it’s right…but it can happen. Good that more cops are wearing body cams and their police cars have mounted video cameras.
I understand too there are some cops who abuse things and use lame excuses to stop you because they are fishing and you ‘don’t look right’ to them…I don’t go for that at all.
What? No calls for this officer to be shot in the head in the same way he shot this motorist? People are calling for Dr. Palmer to experience a death commensurate to the one he delt the beloved lion. Clearly the loss of the lion is more outrage inducing to much of the public. Now, why is that?
I for one am happy nobody is calling for the officer to be shot in the head, and that things seem calm in Cincinnati. I think the victim’s family had a lot to do with that.
You can see the officer gets agitated when DuBose stops the officer from opening the door. The next second DuBose starts the car, the officer reaches in toward the ignition while drawing his gun. He shoots DuBose about 3 seconds after he starts the car. DuBose clearly put the car in drive since it moved down the street after he was killed, but how far could the cop have been drug in 2 seconds? Straight up murder.
I am thankful this officer was wearing a body camera that proved him to be the lying, cold blooded killer he is. No amount of “He tried to run me over/I feared for my life” will negate what is clearly in evidence from that videocam. From this case, it would appear that some officers may forget they are recording their own actions, as well as those of the public with whom they interact, and will thereby not remember to be on their best behavior when on patrol. When he was telling bald-faced lies in an attempt to cover up his crime, he still must have forgotten that there was an impartial witness to what went down. Body cameras and cell phone footage may not prevent murderous cops from murdering, but they will make it harder for them to proffer the same stock excuses that use to suffice in virtually all other incidences in the past. People use to think black people were lying when we said some cops were abusing their power when it came to us. They use to say we were paranoid, and “playing the race card”. Recent vidoes are making dismissal of our claims a lot less easy. Yes, of that I am extremely thankful.
I have a couple of answers. First, the cynical one: this is the first lion story like this people have seen, so they aren’t tired of it.
A less cynical answer: people are using hyperbolic language in the lion case that they don’t really mean. Maybe it seems OK to do so in a case like that, where it wouldn’t seem right in a case in which a human being was killed.
Finally, there might be some people who actually are as outraged by the killing of an animal as by the killing of a person. But I don’t think they are the majority.
Part of the problem is that many of these cops truly aren’t lying. They do feel threatened and feel they are in danger, and react accordingly. The problem is their feelings are triggered by the look of the person they’re stopping, not by the actions of the person they stop. Consequently, when most of us get outraged that the police overreact, the police feel aggrieved that we don’t understand the threat they feel. There’s no communication going on - least of all with the black community that is usually the victim.
The perfect example of this is the poor guy in South Carolina who was shot by the cop at the gas station. The black man was standing next to his car, the cop asked him for his license, he reached in to the car to get it, and the policeman shot him (not fatally though, thank goodness). There was not a single thing the man did wrong, except be black. But the police look at the people and make judgments on looks, not behavior. But they don’t seem to understand that.
Well, I call a bit of bullshit on that. ^^ This cop instigated the stop over a missing front license plate. There has already been discussion about this, but I live in Ohio and not having a front plate is common. There is no question that the stop was a fishing expedition. If you saw the video, you would see that the victim reached first into the glove compartment, and then to the floor of the car, and neither action caused the officer any alarm. There was absolutely no threat to the officer here.