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.
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.