Please don’t tell me “race was not a factor”:
Horrid! Despicable.
WHAT?! I am furious to the point of tears. I can’t even imagine.
I think I must have seen a different video than you did. I saw two officers, behaving very professionally. The pregnant woman was not obviously pregnant, she appeared just very overweight. Everything was fine and calm, until she started getting irate. She was rude to the officers, dismissive, ignoring them, refusing to tell them her name. Screaming, resisting arrest. Do you think if she had been calm and had given them the information that they asked for, there would have been a problem? I suspect that she was probably the one more at fault in the road rage incident, as she seemed pretty volatile. Said she felt threatened because the other woman was white? Really? Who would say that about any person’s race? That’s just weird.
Now I have no idea if there was racism involved, maybe there was. The officers didn’t look Caucasian to me. I suspect it was far more of the fact that she really was resisting arrest. If a police officer asks you a question, answer it. Show your identification, don’t be rude, don’t ignore them, be calm. Never scream and flail. What is wrong with people that they think they can behave like this? You can’t! Don’t do it! God forbid I ever see my kids act so stupidly. My youngest, being a frat brother, has had interaction with the police, and even as a clean cut white kid, he knows to be scrupulously polite, even if you are annoyed, even if you know you’re in the right and you think they are behaving unfairly towards you. Don’t be arrogant and combative with a law enforcement officer!
Now I’m sure you don’t agree with me. But I challenge you to look at the video again, and consider how you would react to a police officer. Any chance you would have done what she did? I doubt it. What are the odds that you would get into a road rage incident? Pretty low, I’ll bet.
But I don’t think that police officers should take every little act of resistance as resisting arrest. They should be better at calming the situation down, as opposed to making it worse. Dealing with a situation like this is a waste of resources.
Well, apparently either the judge saw the same video we did or evidence since he threw out her case.
There was nothing to arrest her FOR. How can you resist arrest if you’re not being arrested?
The entire thing seems like a waste of everyone’s efforts. The call about the road rage incident itself, talking to these women, bringing her to jail, going to court. The fact that I wasted two minutes of my life viewing this video.
If everyone just could manage to treat other people with respect, none of this would happen. Two drivers getting angry at each other for some stupid little thing. The woman treating the officers disrespectfully. The officers exacerbating the situation instead of calming her down, and not managing to still be respectful when she got enraged. Respect, I guess it’s a challenge.
The woman seems highly unstable. I suspect she’s been banned from the school property for more than just this incident. While I’m not great defender of cops, I think they are damned if they do and damned if they don’t when dealing with a nutcase like this.
Before I viewed the video, I was going to make a guess that it was a dispute between a very pregnant woman and some police officers about a box of donuts…but I was wrong. My husband just had to fast for a colonoscopy, and if anyone had to get between him and his box of Krispy Kreme donuts, I think there would have been blood 
I saw the segment on the news. There was a blond woman who called the cops to report that the woman in the video broke her car window. Apparently, there was some altercation between the two women involving honking and pounding on the cars. The cop arrived, saw no damage, not even a scratch, but proceeded to ask the pregnant woman for her ID escalating the situation out of control. That was not a legal request to begin with, as the legal experts interviewed pointed out.
If someone was pounding on my car and windows, I’d be scared, too. And as far as a police officer illegally asking for my identification, I think often the cops aren’t certain of the laws, unfortunately. I can’t imagine making a big deal about it. If they ask for it, provide it. Unless you’re a felon and you have a warrant out for your arrest, I guess.
As for the “race” - do you think a white pregnant woman would have been treated as inhumanely in this situation?
If the white woman was treating the officers disrespectfully, ignoring them, screaming and flailing…yes, I do. And I don’t think the officers were white, either. I also don’t think she looked pregnant, just fat.
Call me cynical, but I doubt that a white woman would have been even asked for her ID. And for not knowing that they are not supposed to demand ID… they deal with these situations daily. The cops should be well aware of the laws they are trying to protect.
That is true, they ought to be aware of the laws. Particularly ones that they are dealing with, every single day. But I don’t know what the big deal is about asking for ones ID is. Is it really worth shrieking and fighting over?
To add to that, it seems to me that in a driving related incident, that the cops would completely have the right to demand ID. That seems quite odd that the law wouldn’t require that. Are you certain that these legal experts know what they’re talking about?
I think the whole asking-for-ID thing is a power move on the part of cops. It establishes them as being the authority, and it tells the civilian that the authorities now know who they are. Sorry, BB, but I don’t think legality is much of a concern in a lot of police departments. Freddie Gray also did nothing illegal, but that didn’t stop the cops from initiating the confrontation which resulted in his death.
@BunsenBurner I agree about them knowing the laws, but if a white woman were acting the way she did, I can’t imagine them doing something different. Also, they were grabbing her for a good 10 seconds while she physically resisted (not arrest) before taking her to the ground. Even if they were doing the wrong thing, she should have listened to them and sued afterwards for misconduct, illegal restraint, whatever.
“I think the whole asking-for-ID thing is a power move on the part of cops. It establishes them as being the authority, and it tells the civilian that the authorities now know who they are.”
You could be right about that. I wonder if they do that when someone appears to question their authority.
In the video (starting at around 3:20), the officer only asked her for her name (not identification), and she began being uncooperative at that point. Neither she nor the officer ends up looking good in the video. Neither does the other woman, who was the other half of the petty parking dispute, but decided to escalate it by calling the police for such a trivial matter.
The pregnant woman was clearly upset, and she shouldve been. How would you feel if you get into an altercation, police were called, the other party is asked a few questions, but you are the only one asked to produce ID? The cop found no damage, the woman was no where near the white woman. He shouldve told them to go their separate ways and move on. Instead, he escalated the situation. It is common knowledge in CA that you dont have to give id or your name. I am sure every cop knows this.
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How can you resist arrest if you’re not being arrested?
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@romanigypsyeyes That can happen, and it does happen.
In fact, that could have happened to me. We were camping and a park ranger wanted to arrest me for accidentally leaving dish soap out while we walked to the bathroom. lol Luckily, another ranger came by and stopped the process. That nice ranger came back and apologized and explained that the other ranger was “new” and had previously been a prison guard and didn’t yet understand that campers are just a bunch of families that might make a little mistake (not a crime) and their job is to remind ~ not arrest.
However, if that first ranger had gone ahead and arrested me and I had resisted, I would have been wrong ~ even tho I didn’t commit an arrest-able offense. Certainly if I had been arrested, and resisted, the judge would have thrown the whole thing out, but I still would have been “wrong” for resisting.
The police gave her “two minutes” and then within 20 seconds they were arresting her. Shameful.