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In what should have been a routine traffic stop, a teacher went off on a rant calling an officer a Mexican racist and murderer. The resulting video is a microcosm of everything that is wrong with our beautiful Nation now. We can all learn from this interaction between a law enforcement officer and a teacher.
First of all, body cams are much discussed these days. The police officer’s body cam in the Ma’khia Bryant incident showed that he only had a nanosecond to shoot Bryant before she stabbed the girl she had pinned against the car. In the case of the teacher that this officer stopped, he bought his own video equipment, because at least the San Dimas Station of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department doesn’t provide body cams for officers. Thank God for this video.
Below is the Tweet from Bill Melugin, the reporter who had the original story:
NEW: "You're always gonna be a Mexican, you'll never be white, you know that?"
A Latino LASD deputy sent me his bodycam video of a woman claiming to be a teacher launching into a racist tirade against him when he pulled her over in San Dimas. She repeatedly calls him a murderer. pic.twitter.com/Cc8jSVenCQ— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) May 3, 2021
The officer pulled this woman over for using her cell phone while driving. She immediately flips the script and says she has her cell phone out recording him because he is harassing her. She calls him a murderer. From Mediaite, here is part of the transcript:
The motorist accuses the deputy of “harassing” her, telling him, “You scared me and made me think you were going to murder me.”
“Ok, well, I’m sorry you feel that way,” he replies.
“Well that’s not just a feeling. You’re a murderer.”
“Ok.”
Later she says, “I’m perfectly legal and I’m a teacher.”
“Congratulations,” says the deputy.
“You’re a murderer.”
She later claims, “You’re threatening to kill me and my son,” who apparently is also in the car during the stop.
She calls the officer a murderer and a racist and tells him that he will never be white.
Due to my lead foot, I have been pulled over for speeding a time or two. I was usually snarky with the cop. Well, I used to be until I got pulled over in New Canaan, Connecticut. The officer threatened to arrest me for calling him “Sir” and told me he had better not see me driving in his town again. My late Marine Father would come down from his Heavenly post and wear me out if I spoke to a police officer the way this woman did.
I am going to go where a white woman dare not go and point out that his woman is Black. My friends who support Black Lives Matter have schooled me many times on the fact that Black people cannot be racist. Au contraire, mes amis. Black people can be racist, bigoted and prejudiced. This woman is exhibit A. She assumes the officer is Mexican because he has a Latino last name. She assumes he is a murderer because a minute percentage of law enforcement officers are brutes who have no business being in the job. She assumes he is harassing her. What’s funny is that part of that might be consciousness of guilt because she left her driver’s license at home.
This woman is a teacher. Some sources are reporting that she is an English teacher with over a decade in the classroom. She has a fairly limited vocabulary. With her prejudiced and bigoted attitude, I feel very for the students in her class room. She judges them by their color, their accent, their clothes, maybe the car their parents drive.
In an effort to educate this teacher and anyone else who might believe that ACAB (All Cops Are Bastards), I decided to grab a few statistics. From WLOX:
On any given day, around 800 thousand police officers are working the streets of this country.
“Of those 800,000, police shoot and kill on average about 1,000 people a year,” said Byram Police Chief Luke Thompson, who is the current president of the Mississippi Association of Chiefs of Police. “Three-hundred-and-seventy-five million contacts with police officers, and 1,000 of those are deadly.”
Every life is precious. We all are children of God. When you look at the 375,000,000 contacts/per year with police, you think how statistically insignificant the numbers are. No wonder the police are demoralized and retiring at a breakneck pace.
Can you imagine if we treated teachers the way we treat cops? You know, the teachers whose unions are refusing to return to the classroom. By the way, the police showed up to work every day during the worst of the pandemic. The underpaid, overworked, vilified police.
Here is what really got my goat: That teacher had her son in the car with her! Way to set an example, Mom. You want to know why youths of every race, color, creed and nation of origin are disrespecting police like this:
Yes, I know. All of the videos of police being attacked are age restricted by YouTube. That weekend in Chicago 49 police were injured by these disrespectful cockwombles.
To add insult to injury, the teacher, who called the officer a murderer and racist, tried to file a complaint with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department against him.
Police can do better. Teachers can do better. Let me tell you this, if you are raising a child who believes ACAB, you have failed as a parent. Adults need to set the example. Learn to respect those who are sworn to protect you.
Featured Image: Chris Yarzab/Flickr.com/Cropped/Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)
Bob says: In my younger days I also had a lead foot. However, every time I was pulled over I turned off the engine, rolled down the window, turned on the dome light (if it was dark), and put my hands on the wheel until the police officer came to my car. I never wanted to make anyone carrying a gun mad at me.
GWB says: The only couple of times I’ve ever been … troublesome to an officer was when I knew he was wrong and I was right. And even then I started out respectful and polite. (Not because he was carrying a gun, but just because that’s how you should start out dealing with all people. But, yes, I brought up Chris Rock’s rules below.)
And plenty of other times I was respectufl and polite because I knew he had me to rights and being a jerk does not get you out of tickets.
NTSOG says: The woman is indeed a very nasty piece of work. She should never be allowed to enter a classroom again.
Via another site [davidthompson] I found this information:
“According to Fox News: The 14-year career officer told [Fox News’s Bill] Melugin that he recorded the interaction on both his official department-issued bodycam and a personal one he bought to “protect himself from false allegations” as the public continues to demonize police following the death of George Floyd last year.”
Also, TMZ says the woman’s claim to be a teacher might need an asterisk. The two colleges she claims to have worked for say she hasn’t been employed since 2016 and 2017. They also say she hasn’t been employed by any institution in the Los Angeles Community College District since the Spring semester of 2017.”
The implication that he cannot trust his superiors to not hang him out to dry on a fraudulent allegation – really? That is a VERY chilling comment about the state of the LAPD.
GWB says: Au contraire, mes amis.
Now, see? There you go showing off your white privilege! 😉
part of that might be consciousness of guilt
Nope. She just thinks she can be an a**hole and that will get her out of the ticket somehow. She thinks she has power because of the riots and the politics currently in vogue. (In reality, none of those people give a tinker’s d*mn about her.)
She has a fairly limited vocabulary.
Most ignorant people do. Though some do manage to hide it by cramming as many syllables as possible into those few words. This woman isn’t even capable of that.
When you look at the 375,000,000 contacts/per year
And here is one of those places where I’m gonna stop and point out how even real statistics can give the wrong impression. Take that 800,000 cops versus 1,000 deaths. That actually seems kind of appalling – 1 out of 800 cops has to shoot and kill someone in a year. But humans assume a lot of things about numbers like that. They seldom take into account clustering (mostly because they’ve been raised on “that means, out of your high school graduating class…” sort of interpretations). They seldom take into account turnover (how many officers leave and enter that total number in a year). That 375 million contacts is statistically more than once per person in the US. But I haven’t had a “police contact” in a couple of years now. (Unless you count the mall rent-a-cop motioning for me to put a mask on a few weeks ago. But he didn’t even walk up to me as I pointedly ignored him.) Of course some people have a lot more contact with police in a year. I’m going to guess that in some years, one of those folks gets shot in more than one encounter.
I think a better statistic would be how many shooting deaths in a year, total, then divide the demographics into “big cities” and “everywhere else” and see what those numbers look like. And of course, the statistics when you obey Chris Rock’s rules for How Not To Get Your A** Beat By A Cop and when you don’t obey them.
/statistics rant
Learn to respect those who are sworn to protect you.
I’m going to disagree here. Learn to give everyone the benefit of the doubt until they give you reason otherwise. But just because they’re “sworn to protect” doesn’t mean they get automatic deference or respect – at least over and above every other human on the planet. Because, sadly, there are entirely too many cockwombles among police, too. The key is to not assume they are, merely because they’re stopping you or (especially) simply because they are a policeman.
As to the video. I have to admit that the third time she called me a murderer as a total non sequitur, I would have keyed my mic and said, “Dispatch, can I get a mental health evaluation unit out here, along with the supervisor? Thanks.”
Toni Williams says: GWB-
I have decided to own my white privilege. I recognize the problems with the statistics. I was just hoping to shock people with the sheer number of engagements.
TW
GWB says: I understand the use of them. I have just come to realize how much we rely on our numbers impacting feelings rather than being real knowledge. Statistics are for homogenized populations, which is not really true for the US as a whole.
The rant is a reflex action of mine. 😉
JAW3 says: That police officer was excellent as a professional and as an honorable man.
[…] Girls’ own Toni wrote yesterday on the viral video of a teacher behaving badly when pulled over by a police officer. I wish this […]
Armageddon Rex says: For the love of G•d!!! With the billions upon billions of dollars shoveled into the maw of gubermint at the local, state, and federal levels; why did this law enforcement officer need to purchase his own video equipment to “wear” whilst on patrol? His department executive management needs to find work elsewhere yesterday, and not in criminal justice. Body cameras are arguably more important than issued firearms today in conducting law enforcement.
Scott says: In reading deeper into some of this, it’s even worse Rex.
His department does issue body cams, but he doesn’t trust the admin to use the footage to back him, and THAT is why he bought his own, so that he has footage he know won’t be doctored to fit a narrative and used to hang him..
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