A video that captured the brutal arrest of a Black college student pulled from his car and beaten by officers in Florida has led to an investigation and calls for motorists to consider protecting themselves by placing a camera inside their vehicles.
The footage shows that William McNeil Jr., 22, was sitting in the driver’s seat, asking to speak to the Jacksonville deputies’ supervisor, when authorities broke his window, punched him in the face, pulled him from the vehicle, punched him again and threw him to the ground.
Officers must have reasonable suspicion of a law being broken to require ID: https://legalclarity.org/can-a-cop-ask-for-your-id-for-no-reason/. The case you cited was because of an expired plate.
He was within his rights to ask what law he violated before complying. The cops mentioned he needed his headlights on for the conditions, but he was skeptical, so he asked for the statute or a supervisor. If he refused after that, fine; but the cops escalated way earlier and with more force than was reasonable.
Dude it is in your citation:
The case law’s super clear. You don’t get to ask for a supervisor before providing ID, you don’t get to argue the grounds for the stop before providing ID. They’re not even required to explain why they pulled you over first, although almost all cops will do just because it’s a reasonable question. If you want to have a conversation instead of give your ID, they’re allowed to ask you to get out of the car. If you want to have a conversation instead of getting out of the car, they’re allowed to use force to grab you out of it. Most cops will take at least some time for the argument, it makes their case easier the more clearly it’s laid out what happened and the longer the person refuses to ID, but it looks from the bodycam timestamps like there was about 6 minutes of arguing before they broke his window, which is a little shorter than usual but still not like “ID” “no” (smash).
If you want to have a whole separate conversation about what the law should be, that would be fine, but there’s a whole genre of YouTube videos where people learn that’s not how it works and get arrested for it. Absolutely you should not be giving this as legal advice. It’s actually a common feature of that genre that people will while they are being arrested cite what people like you on the internet told them, as where they got their legal knowledge, and sort of ask for a do-over now that they understand that they can actually be arrested because of following that advice. I have never seen the police agree to the do-over.
Also, the video didn’t appear to be making a sovereign citizen argument, just asking why he was pulled over. Pulling someone over simply for driving while black is not a lawful stop. But like you said, there are 6 more minutes of video, so we have no idea the details of this specific case, but that doesn’t mean it’s lawful for every case.
I’m fully aware of that entire genre of videos from sovereign citizens. /r/amibeingdetained was one of my favorite subreddits before leaving reddit.
Here’s the whole stop from the bodycam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5i88VDrI3VA
Yeah, I saw that after I replied. That doesn’t change the fact that ID is only required if the stop itself is lawful. Officers can’t just pull anyone over because they “feel like it,” otherwise the traffic stop itself is unlawful.
Obviously he would have had a much better time if he complied, but that’s a pragmatic solution, not a legally required one. Unless the officers can show to a court what offense warranted the traffic stop in the first place, failure to identify is not by itself an offense.
Failure to use headlights during “inclement weather,” and failure to wear a seat belt.
Is that bullshit? Yeah, arguably so. He’d have had a pretty good chance of beating it in court. Cops also show a marked statistical tendency to pull over black people more than white people, and the statistical tendency only shows up during the day and evaporates for traffic stops conducted at night, which makes it pretty hard to argue that it’s any kind of correlation other than causation. So yeah, you could definitely say the initial stop was bullshit.
Unfortunately, a traffic stop for specifically identified infractions is absolutely a lawful stop even if it’s kinda bullshit. And the guy really screwed himself over by refusing to ID, obstructing their attempts to get him out of the car, and then resisting them arresting him, all of which are unambiguous crimes which it’s gonna be a lot more difficult for him to argue his way out of in court that the initial “inclement weather” bullshit. Maybe he can make something out of the fact that they used excessive force once he started obstructing, but more likely he’s just going to be screwed. It’s not like the system gets less racist if you’re a giant unnecessary pain in the ass about it.
Bleh, you’re right, they did provide the infraction, even though it was BS (it was cloudy, but it was not raining). I still think the excessive force gives him a pretty decent chance at winning.
I suppose I was making a more general argument that may or may not apply to this case. I am just uncomfortable telling people “just comply, or you’ll make things worse,” even if pragmatically that might be true.
Yeah, I get that. A lot of it depends on the details. If ICE is arresting your family for literally nothing at all, and you may never see them again, then yes, not complying is going to make things worse, but it’s hard for me to say that people “should” comply for that reason. Fuck 'em.
This is not that. This is just a bullshit traffic stop. I get that the frustration comes from the racism inherent in the system, it’s not just the traffic stop, but you gotta be smart about when and how to resist. Getting stubborn and hostile with some random traffic cop and getting tons more charges thrown at you as a result is not going to undo the racism. It also bugs me that people (look around this thread) have some kind of idea that they’re legally in the right if they decide to start arguing with the cops in this way, which… if you’re going to decide to do that (either when getting the ticket or with ICE or anywhere in between), you should have a clear eyed understanding of what you’re getting yourself into.
Basically, I definitely don’t think it’s a good thing people on the internet telling each other how it works and setting up for more things like this to happen to drivers who don’t expect how it is going to play out.
No court will side with a suspect for demanding a reason and refusing to comply until given one they agree with. That’s a recipe for idiots and armchair lawyers asserting their “rights” incorrectly. Look up sovereign citizens. They are always horrifically wrong on the law yet still demand the law they broke or to get a supervisor.
Any court would maintain the status quo that any traffic stop should be presumed lawful until proven otherwise in court. This includes your obligation to provide license, registration and/or insurance (depending on state), and to exit the vehicle for “officer safety”. That last one is one of the worst ones protecting bad cops. Used legitimately it makes the stop safe for everyone. Used by some power tripping asshole it’s their easiest path to making the stop violent.
Ding ding ding
The system still has some massive problems. If your goal is less police brutality and reform of the system, though, committing crimes in front of the police and refusing to cooperate with them in any way unless they use force is not going to be a real good way to go after that goal.
I’ve seen situations that are way worse than this one. One guy got spooked (like legitimately spooked, you could tell he was for-real scared that the cops were going to do something to him) when he got stopped for an open container in the car. They asked him to get out of the car, he took off instead, crashed his car, foot chase, they tackled him, he ended the night with a bunch of felonies and his car totaled. That’s one reason I think this stuff is so absurd and dangerous when people say it on the internet; sometimes it translates to real world behavior too. You could tell that he was influenced by it, and that’s part of why he thought stomping on the gas and making the situation a hundred times worse was the right play.
“During a lawful traffic stop”
You don’t get to make that determination during the stop, that’s for the court to decide after the fact.
After the fascist pigs beat your head in?
That is true, but if the court decides it was unlawful, then the failure to identify charge will also be dropped.
In which (unlikely) case, all that happened to him was damage to his vehicle, some minor injuries, an arrest, tow fees, having to show up in court, maybe some bond, and cost of a lawyer unless he wants to roll the dice with a public defender. And, in return, he gets nothing. But he didn’t get any fines or probation or maybe jail, or a criminal record (although he does have the arrest on his record). Victory!
(This one’s a little more complicated because they actually did use excessive force, so there’s a slim chance that he might be able to sue them civilly and win. In which case it might be completely worth it. But, I would say in about 99% of these cases where someone disagrees with the reason for the stop and so decides to refuse to ID, the only additional results that happen to them are all heavily on the bad side.)
Dude, it’s in your citation: it does NOT permit officers to use violence to achieve identification. They are paid by the hour to wait for a warrant to clear. Anything beyond that is unlawful use of force.
No offense, but do you have a degree in law? Or any training at all? Or are you just making things up? Please respond
I searched for “violence” in both citations and did not find this statement.
Refusing to ID (edit: if you’re stopped for a certain list of reasons, which includes “a traffic stop on the road” as probably the most unambiguous no-wiggle-room one of them) is an arrestable offence. Police do not need an arrest warrant if the crime is literally committed in front of them, to their face, and they’re allowed to use force to effect the arrest.
I think your degree in Bird Law needs updating. I’m not really interested in having an extended he-said-she-said about it, people can read the citations (or investigate the literally thousands of YouTube videos which depict examples of the “ID pls->no->get out->no->window break->ohmygawd->arrest” story arc), and decide what they want to believe about how it works.