Typical ACLU bullshit. They are all for video cameras in patrol cars and on police officers, except sometimes. The lack of a video is considered to be prima facie evidence that the cops are lying. If there is video and the quality is poor or doesn’t reflect the point they wish to make; then the cops tampered with it. If the video backs up the police narrative and shows that the defendant is not a candidate for sainthood, then it must be suppressed. Privacy rights, don’t you know. Girl-tells-social-media-raped-police-release-secret-footage-actually-happened.

Cops contacted this sweet young thing after finding three of them asleep in a car with the motor running, while parked in a store parking lot, late at night. The Sergeant had difficulty waking them up and carried on a conversation with the driver for several minutes without waking the two passengers. It would have been helpful to have smell-o-vision to detect the waves of alcoholic beverages or marijuana emanating from the car. The initial conversation was about the well being of all of the occupants of the vehicle.

Here is an exercise in a “Terry Stop” or “Stop and Frisk.” Here is the decision from the U.S. Supreme Court: Where a police officer observes unusual conduct which leads him reasonably to conclude in light of his experience that criminal activity may be afoot and that the persons with whom he is dealing may be armed and presently dangerous, where, in the course of investigating this behavior, he identifies himself as a policeman and makes reasonable inquiries, and where nothing in the initial stages of the encounter serves to dispel his reasonable fear for his own or others’ safety, he is entitled for the protection of himself and others in the area to conduct a carefully limited search of the outer clothing of such persons in an attempt to discover weapons which might be used to assault him.

Let’s break it down. To believe the officer was wrong, you would have to believe the following:

 

1. Suspicious place, a convenience store parking lot late at night. Never in the history of humanity has a drunk passed out in the parking lot, or a victim bled out, or an armed robber worked up the courage to go in and rob the place.
2. Suspicious Person, drunks, and druggies once passed out behind the wheel have never been known to wake up and drive while still intoxicated. Again beyond the realm of possibility. In the history of mankind, no drunk has ever died of alcohol poisoning nor druggie of an overdose.
3. Reasonable inquiries, verbal abuse, evasive answers and outright lies are acceptable civil discourse when uttered in a snotty manner by eighteen old demanding compensation for her illegal marijuana bong pipe.

We don’t have to go into the “frisk” because fear for his safety was not an issue to the extent the Sergeant didn’t believe he would find a knife, gun or small thermonuclear device. The interview indicated to the Sergeant that she was intoxicated and, as the driver, posed a danger to herself and others and arrested her. (He could have made the DWI case, but gave her a break).

She subsequently took to social media to claim that she was “raped” by the police. She did not contact the police department internal affairs, the District Attorney, the State Police or the FBI (violation of rights under color of law). Nope, she posted a rant on social media, specifically Facebook. She picked the forum, and the Chief of Police decided to respond with the body cam footage of the arrest. The ACLU claims that the Chief acted inappropriately, as his posting of a contrary viewpoint, the arrest footage, is an attempt to “shut down conversations.”

Let’s examine the ACLU claim that the Chief of Police  “shut down a conversation.” A conversation is an:  informal interchange of thoughts, information, etc., by spoken words; oral communication between persons; talk; colloquy. That doesn’t quite fit the context; maybe some synonyms will clear things up: debate, discussion, and exchange. Not there yet; how about account, disclosure or discourse closer, but still not there. The problem is the definition of conversation, and many of the synonyms imply an exchange of ideas, thoughts or information. 

How about a different term for the little Miss Sweetness, Rant:

1. to speak or declaim extravagantly or violently; talk in a wild or vehement way; rave:

2. to utter or declaim in a ranting manner

Here are some synonyms: diatribe, harang, tirade, bluster, bombast, fabrication, inflate, misrepresentation, stretch, or hyperbole. By George, I think we’ve got it!

The reality is, that until the Chief of Police responded to sweetie pies Facebook rant, there was no conversation. There was a wildly inflated tirade where she misrepresented the incident in a light most favorable to her. The conversation began when the police posted the video of the arrest, no bombast, no opinions, and no bullshit, just the scenario as it played out. Once that became public, and the public could compare and contrast little miss sweetness, and light lost the battle.

There is a bigger lesson here, and it has nothing to do with a spoiled eighteen-year-old girl in the hinterlands of the Northeast. The ACLU did not make a mistake in choosing their terms. By their lights, a conversation is only allowable when it conforms to the ACLU vision of the world. The truth is the only reason the ACLU isn’t on the front lines throwing books on the bonfire, is because somebody had to get the gasoline.