What's the deal with motor vehicle violations?

Policy has to balance police and public concerns. If police approach every car with guns drawn, prepared to stop the action in the GIF, then police will make many shooting mistakes. So this cannot be the standard and a policeman who kills in error in this situation should not get a free pass.If we really believed the threat was as depicted, why would the police walk up on the car as shown? Surely we can envision a safer scenario for the policeman in which he does not need to make a split second decision not to shoot on every traffic stop.ABEI had not followed your link when I wrote my post, but Lewinski's positions seem quite extreme and his research is quite questionable. What he presents is not science.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

I wonder why that article doesn't include a description of the shooter.You think it'd be helpful given the fella is still at large.

Maybe they did not have one. Here is a picture of the suspect along with his name.Memphis police officer killed; suspect identified | CNN

But his testimony is winning cases in court, convincing judges and/or juries that when an officer is in a situation where his life could possibly be in danger that the officer is justified in acting as if it is.More specifically, referencing that gif, he's able to convince judges and/or juries that an officer is justified in shooting a driver who might have a handgun in the console, whether or not there's any evidence that he does.And some departments are letting him train their officers.All this is very alarming. It occurs to me that the only safe way for an officer to approach a vehicle he has pulled over is from the rear, which they already do. From some feet back of the driver's window he should direct the driver to lower his window and put both hands on the wheel. Only then should he come closer. If there are passengers in the vehicle then he should call for backup. Any officer not following a protocol something like this, one designed to insure that the officer never incorrectly feels threatened for his life, could be held responsible for any shootings of unarmed persons.But following such a protocol (particularly that instruction to put both hands where the officer can see them, and woe to the one-armed man) would increase the public's awareness of just how much danger they are in at a traffic stop. Which wouldn't be a bad thing, and it might bring about a dialog about how to make traffic stops safer.--Percy

Yes. And if we are talking about changing policy, perhaps a debunking of Lewinski as a non scientist whose testimony should not be trusted ought to be one of the steps. Lewinski testifies in grand jury settings in which his testimony is completely without rebuttal. That's what I find the most alarming. Not if Lewinski is testifying and is believed. In addition to "time/motion studies" which is what the GIF is about, Lewinski also testifies about making judgments under stress to justify failures to follow protocol and about making memory errors under stress which is suppose to explain any inconsistencies in police testimony. In short Lewinski is undoubtably getting police excused for bad shootings. I note that Lewinski always advises that a police shooting is justified, and his testimony is not limited to shootings at traffic stops. Often his testimony is about excusing police behavior in the face of blatant errors in judgment. In one case he testified in a police shooting where the police shot a man while he was crawling on the ground. He testified that Oscar Grant's shooting was excusable despite the fact that Oscar was sitting on the ground in hand cuffs.I am not sure what advice I'd give to the public if their city's police force was trained by Dr. Lewinski.I'll also note that the shooting in Memphis was done by a passenger who got out of the car as the policeman approached. We don't know what protocol was followed and what mistakes were made.ABE:I understand what you are getting about with regard to raising public awareness by establishing a protocol. But I think there is enough evidence out there already that police are shooting/killing too many people in all kinds of situation. Individual police are sometimes arrested, but even then Lewinski science can get them off. I think setting up rules based on Lewinski science is impossible because that goobledygook can excuse any shooting.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

How twisted are things when a free citizen has to fear for their life because their tail light has burned out? The whole thing has gone sideways. If you have to worry about being shot as a result of such a thing then you are not a free citizen and instead are a slave to your security. Take the policeman's gun away until it is clear that they need one. Use a robot or drone to interact with the citizen. The biggest problem with our police forces is their sense that they need to resolve issues immediately and there is no room for just letting things play out. Most of the pressure comes from the police.Sometimes you have to come with the big hammer but not usually and never by mistake.

Was there another case lately that involved a person being shot during a traffic stop for a blown taillight?

Oh probably but not that I know of. What is your point though? It is certainly not unusual.http://www.policestateusa.com/2014/bobby-canipe/abe; Why should this officer be absolved of his mistake? I can go to prison for making a mistake on my taxes.Edited by ProtoTypical, : No reason given.

My point is that you can't build an argument by just making shit up.

Actually you can build arguments with hypothetical elements. Einstein made arguments or thought experiments in which all of the the elements were entirely hypothetical. You can too.In this case however, some ground work has been laid for the premise that traffic stops being dangerous regardless of the reason for the stop because of the training that Dr. Lewinski and others offer to police and because the police do encounter real threats when they stop people. If you've got a problem with that, why not present a counter argument.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

What is made up? The fact is that interacting with the police is a fairly dangerous thing to do. The majority of people on this thread are afraid of their police forces to the point that they would silently comply with an illegal request. Unfortunately, it is good advice.

Being an older Caucasian in a nice car is your best bet.If you still get stopped, just being sober and respectful might well save you from a ticket or long hassle, even if you're not white. But a big enough jerk of a cop can make even verbal restraint hard for anyone. Of course, if you're rich enough, you could explain your rights to the cops, but you have to be awful rich, and connected, and they have to know it.Public civil disobedience is one thing--the whole world is watching, sometimes. But during a traffic stop, you are alone, confronting an armed agent of the state with, essentially, a license to kill.Those cops are terrified you're gonna be the stupid tail-light stop with a body in the trunk and a gun in the console. After a police shooting, the officers always claim to have feared for their lives. I always believe them.So, ya, best to focus on avoiding and surviving those encounters. It's best to not even be memorable, really, because if you want to resist, you need to resist politically. Getting your name in a police dossier or database, or your carcass in the county jail , is the last thing you want.

I tend to believe their stories about their fear. But I also believe that police can create fearful situations through reckless tactics. In those situations, the police ought to be held personally responsible for creating a killing field. But what usually happens is that bad policing is at worst found to be mere negligence resulting in big civil judgments that come out of the tax coffers and no punishment for the police officers. (e.g. Eric Garner and Amadou Diallo cases).

I agree. They often carry their very own personal fog of war around in their heads, a miasma of fear and, too often, hate. Both have flourished in a vacuum of accountability, as though the police had a status of forces agreement protecting them from answering for collateral deaths. Better recruitment pratices, training, true civilian oversight--these and more would help and should be sought.But it's also true that as we hardened our foreign policy into preemptive war, we militarized our police into an occupying force, complete with heavy automatic weapons and armored personnel carriers. I think that's not a coincidence.There's plenty of responsibility to go around at street level, but fear and violence plaque our responses to each other and the rest of the world. We can and should make the sorts of policy changes you imply, but as long as we engage the foreign other primarily with violence or its threat, we'll see the same play out at home.I don't excuse any individual violent or reckless action on the grounds of social or political forces, but Uncle Sam can't pick up a big stick every time he steps over the border and not expect a lot of little sticks to fly at home. It's not just local clusters of bad actors, it's a national universe of bad thinking.

Of course it's good advice.As others have pointed out, the sidewalk or side of the road are not the places to be trying to figure out whether you're suffering some technical violation of rights by the police.Take the stand in the court room, not with the cops.