It doesn’t appear anyone was drinking… this was in the morning. It appears that the daughter called Mom for a ride since the car was being empounded. Clearly she already knew what the issue was because the daughter would have told her when she called. The astute officer knew she was fishing for info so that she can try to convince him to drop charges (which by the way would be IMPOSSIBLE since the report was filed already). Clueless, entitled, rude behavior on this woman’s part.
She obviously is not ashamed since she tried to blame this on the officers with her response!
Did this occur in Tenafly?? I grew up there and go back several times a year. I know the town very well.
ETA: Yes, it did happen in Tenafly. It’s a small, affluent town in Bergen County where generally the worst thing that happens is speeding on one of the highways surrounding the town, or maybe a break-in at the pizza parlor. Huge kudos to those cops. I wouldn’t have thought they would be so well trained to behave with such restraint.
Ha, I bet they’ve gone through NAMI’s Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training and learned how to deal with people with mental illness! We’ve had to call for help a couple of times and been very impressed with how kind and patient the officers are.
Part of the training: “Verbal de-escalation skills. CIT teaches a new set of skills for ensuring officer safety – the words, approach and body language that convince a person to get help, or defuse a potentially violent encounter.”
“…a long time resident and friend of Mayor…” Does the mayor have anything to say?
Or she didn’t like the inconvenience of getting impounded for a “small thing” like an expired registration and thought the officers should get reprimanded by her powerful mother.
If 3 white doctoral students in Tenafly were pulled over and had their car impounded for obscured plates, illegal window tinting and expired registration, it looks like their privilege wasn’t working out real well for them.
I watched the video only once, but I think she said several times “I take full responsibility for this” – “this” meaning whatever offense was charged to the driver. (Unless I misheard / misunderstood.) So it sounds to me like she wanted to get the ticket so she then could tear it up in her position of power.
That said, it would’ve been funny if the driver was charged with something really bad (e.g., transporting drugs … maybe a kidnapped person in the trunk) and she wanted to be responsible for it!!!
Well the mother wasn’t tased, shot, or slammed to the ground, cuffed and arrested for causing a disturbance or resisting arrest. I suspect many people of color walking away from police stops tick off those things in their minds and thank their lucky stars.
There’s no rational justification for Hot Mess Mom’s attitude, but the tendency of NJ towns to maximize revenue through a blizzard of traffic tickets is well known. Was it necessary to tow the car for an expired registration sticker? Sure, it’s allowed but I have never seen it myself. Typically the officer just issues a ticket, if no other unresolved violations are associated with the driver. Of course, Hot Mess Mom blew her chance of getting the officer to minimize the offense(s) and the consequences.
But it wasn’t just the expired registration. It was also the obscured license plate and too heavily tinted windows. We can’t know that they would stillhave towed the car if it had been only the expired registration. Right?
Police probably know that upper class people can whip out lawyers at the first sign of any possibility of misconduct. So they probably are content to be restrained and polite while strictly enforcing and obeying the law, let the camera roll, and let her embarrass herself…
Police probably know that upper class people can whip out lawyers at the first sign of any possibility of misconduct. So they probably are content to be restrained and polite while strictly enforcing and obeying the law, let the camera roll, and let her embarrass herself…
Maybe they were just two good cops. They do exist.
