TexasCHLforum.com

A couple points to remember:

1. All traffic offenses in Texas are crimes except for a red light camera ticket. You can be arrested for any crime in Texas except that you must be offered one chance to sign a ticket for speeding or having an open container of alcohol. This went to SCOTUS a couple years ago and was upported. I believe the case was styled as Atwood v. Lago Vista but I may have the name wrong (city is right).

2. This is just one side of a story and a badly presented one at that. We have the driver's claim that he was only arrested because he was carrying but no rebuttal at all from the other side. They declined to talk about it at all.

3. The video was very heavily edited and we do not know what else happened. At least one instruction of the police was clearly NOT obeyed. The driver was told to exit the vehicle and walk to the back end with his hands on his head. When he got out of the car, the officer's were cuffing him there by the door, which indicates he did not comply with their instructions and was probably told more than once to exit. Also you will see his hands were no where near his head and one arm was still swinging around as the officer cuffed him. This is not enough for me to say he resisted but I do think he did not cooperated either.

4. I agree that the officer did not follow the protocol I was taught for traffic stops. Called the seven step approach, the officer should first greet the person, identify himself, identify his authority, tell the person why he was stopped, and then ask for the DL and insurance. It quickly becomes an almost routine speech like "Good morning, I am Officer Rothstein of the San Antonio Police Department. I stopped you today for exceeding the posted speed limit. May I please see your driver's license and proof of financial responsibility?" Notice that the wording is very polite, does not accuse (no I stopped you because you were speeding) and complies with the law (we need proof of financial responsibility not insurance, it could be a bond posted or self-insurance, etc.). This is good tactics to avoid problems with the driver (as happened in this video) but is not a law or a written policy in any departments that I am aware of.


Overall, I think there is much more to this story than appears in this article. The police were not as professional as I would like and the driver was not as cooperative as he claimed.