Cop gone wild---lying and making threats
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typical... 0 -
there's one in every croud 0 -
Why what an outstanding officer![xx(] 0 -
i really hope this video is fake and it sounds fake. if its real then a cop deserves to go to jail. 0 -
okay after watching the entire video i will say this...i believe the motorist would have been within his rights to shoot and kill the officer. the officer was armed with a handgun and making threats to illegally kidnap and assualt an innocent civilian. therefore, the civilian would have been within his rights to use deadly force to protect his own life. i wish he had. 0 -
barely 5 miles from where I live.
yesterday
Officer in trouble over motorist's video in South County
By Patrick M. O'Connell and Georgina Gustin
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
09/11/2007
ST. GEORGE - A car-mounted video camera - more commonly used by police than against them - captured a loud and threatening confrontation in this tiny St. Louis County community that left an officer on suspension and the whole world able to listen in.
The picture doesn't show much, but the audio part of the recording, posted on Google Video and YouTube on the Internet, brought more than 300 protest calls to St. George Police Chief Scott Uhrig.
"I was very displeased when I saw the actions on the video," Uhrig said. "My officers are not trained and taught to act like that."
He put Sgt. James Kuehnlein on unpaid suspension pending further investigation.
Uhrig said the officer's actions were not justified, and he insisted the episode is not representative of his department.
A voice identified as Kuehnlein's can be heard taunting the driver and threatening to jail him on fabricated charges.
The tape, made late last week, was from a camera running in the vehicle Kuehnlein approached, police said.
Brett Darrow, 20, of St. Louis, said he was the driver who recorded the exchange. He posted it online Saturday.
"I wanted everybody to see that this kind of stuff does happen," Darrow said. "I thought if I just go to the chief or whatever, it would just get swept under the rug."
Kuehnlein could not be reached for comment Monday night.
St. George, a municipality of about 1,300, sits along Interstate 55 at Reavis Barracks Road.
In the video, Kuehnlein, a St. George officer for about two years, approaches a young man who was sitting in a parked car about 2 a.m. in a commuter lot near Spokane and Reavis Barracks roads. Kuehnlein asks for identification. When Darrow asks whether he did anything wrong, the officer orders him out of the car and begins shouting.
"You want to try me? You want to try me tonight? You think you have a bad night? I will ruin your night. . Do you want to try me tonight, young boy?"
Darrow says no.
"Do you want to go to jail for some (expletive) reason I come up with?" the police officer says. Later, Darrow says, "I don't want any problems, officer."
"You're about to get it," Kuehnlein is heard saying. "You already started your (expletive) problems with your attitude."
After the officer notices the camera, he says, "I don't really care about your cameras, 'cause I'm about ready to tow your car, then we can tear 'em all apart."
After more than 10 minutes of interaction, Darrow is allowed to go.
Darrow said he was not trying to entrap the officer. He said he pulled into the commuter lot to meet a friend. When the officer asked him for identification, Darrow said he didn't immediately present it because he believes the officer stopped him without probable cause.
Darrow said he installed the cameras in his Nissan Maxima after past run-ins with police. He said he was involved in a physical confrontation in 2005 with an off-duty St. Louis police officer, in a case Darrow said was later dismissed.
Darrow said he plans to meet with Uhrig today to discuss the weekend incident.
Chief Uhrig said Kuehnlein stopped to talk to Darrow because police have received reports of thefts from cars in the area. But, Uhrig said, based on his viewing of the online video, the officer acted inappropriately when he threatened to make up charges, and used a disrespectful tone and inappropriate language.
"We don't do that," Uhrig said. "Someone either violated the law or they didn't. You don't say, I'll lock you up and then come up with why afterward."
today
Young man taunted by policeman wants officer fired
By Georgina Gustin
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
09/12/2007
St. George - A young St. Louis man who videotaped a police officer's angry taunts during a traffic stop, and later posting the footage on the Internet where thousands of viewers have watched it, said Tuesday he wants the officer fired.
Brett Darrow, 20, met with St. George Police Chief Scott Uhrig for more than an hour Tuesday afternoon and also filed a formal complaint against the officer, Sgt. James Kuehnlein.
During the meeting Darrow asked to see the videotape from Kuehnlein's police car. But according to Uhrig, that footage, inexplicably, is nowhere to be found.
"That's the million-dollar question," Uhrig said. "Our policy says any contact the officer has with the public has to be on tape."
Darrow had pulled into a commuter lot at Spokane and Reavis Barracks roads at around 2 a.m. Friday, when Kuehnlein approached and asked him what he was doing. When Darrow questioned why, Kuehnlein launched into a series of taunts and threats.
"The attitude escalated when he thought I was questioning his authority, but I was just trying to figure out what he was doing," Darrow said Tuesday. "I was really scared. He was up in my face, spit coming in my face."
A camera in Darrow's Nissan Maxima captured the incident. Darrow, a St. Louis Community College student, said he put the camera in the car about a year ago after getting a speeding ticket.
"I got a ticket I didn't feel like I deserved," he said. "I was thinking tickets, not this."
In the footage, Darrow can be heard citing his Fourth Amendment rights - his reasonable expectation of privacy - to Kuehnlein. He said Tuesday he's familiar with the law, through "reading statutes, reading constitutional law, reading case law. It's just something I'm interested in."
He said he was not trying to entrap the officer. Kuehnlein could not be reached for comment.
After the incident, Darrow posted the footage on the Internet, where news of it spread quickly. He maintains he did not contact news media and had no idea the matter would get so much attention.
"I didn't mean for it to be what it was," he said.
Darrow said he was in the lot at that late hour because he had just left his cell phone at his girlfriend's house, and the two decided to meet there to hand off the phone because the location was convenient.
Kuehnlein has been an officer with the department for about two years, and had come from the Riverview Police Department. Uhrig said Tuesday that, perhaps, Kuehnlein was not accustomed to having someone question him as Darrow did, with a camera recording his responses.
"Most officers aren't used to being questioned like that," Uhrig said.
St. George, a city of about 1,300 people, sits along Interstate 55 at Reavis Barracks Road. Its police department has four full-time officers and three police cars. An officer can patrol every street in the city in about 20 minutes, Uhrig said.
Uhrig said he has worked hard to cleanse St. George of its image as a speed trap with a police department staffed by unqualified novices. He said he has implemented new, more stringent hiring policies and expanded the department's policy manual since becoming chief two-and-a-half years ago.
"We have a reputation for being traffic enforced," he said. "It's not true. My officers are told to enforce the law. I want quality, not quantity. I want the drugs, the impaired drivers. Those're the things that make a difference."
Uhrig said he would submit a report on the incident to the city's police review board and the St. Louis County prosecutor as early as this week.
* it sure enough is true.0 -
i think the video does actually show him using his blinker. 0 -
quote:Originally posted by Dakota308
i think the video does actually show him using his blinker.
Both turns he made he used his blinker.0 -
The jerk should not only be fired, criminal charges should be brought against him[:(!][:(!][:(!][:(!] 0 -
There are bad cops. There are bad preachers. If you look in every occupation, you can find some bad ones.
Bad ones should be disciplined. According to the details on the side of the page, the officer was placed on leave pending an investigation so that is probably happening.
It does seem that this particular guy goes out cruising for something to use against the police. With the radar detector going and his video activating right before the stop, he appears to be looking for a confrontation so that he can sue like he stated in the video. I wonder if his skills as a painter are lacking since he appears to need lawsuits to supplement his income. I wonder how many times he was treated properly. It appears that he failed to demonstrate those instances.
That being said, I had a bad experience with an officer while I was an LEO myself. I wish I had a video at that time. I made a formal complaint and it basically got swept under a rug, so I can understand peoples frustrations. It really depends on what the officer's supervisory staff are made of. Many citizens make frivolous complaints and a good administrator needs to know how to sort out the legitimate ones from the junk ones. The ones making legitimate ones should be answered and proper disciplinary action taken. And those making the junk ones should be charged with defamation of character.0 -
quote:Originally posted by GUNFUNCO
There are bad cops. There are bad preachers. If you look in every occupation, you can find some bad ones.
Bad ones should be disciplined.
not good enough. someone with power and authority and a armed with a firearms can't be "bad", not to mention on my buck. "cops are human, to err is human" doesn't fly with occupations that posses power over other people's lives.0 -
yup! 0 -
The cop's aggressive attitude indicates he's in the wrong line of work.
In a big city like NY, he'd be in trouble and dead or out of a job in a lot less than two years.0 -
quote:Originally posted by Old Fool
The jerk should not only be fired, criminal charges should be brought against him[:(!][:(!][:(!][:(!]
i am 100 % pro police and i agree he should be charged criminally.0 -
What would you be charging him with? He never even wrote a ticket, much less arrested him.
You may want to note that he made threats but he never followed through on them.
If he had, he could be charged criminally, without much problem.
Without it, he had conduct unbecoming an officer and probably violations of policy. As a police officer, you have to have all the elements of a crime, and you've got to know when you have enough to charge.
Do you?0 -
A p'ing contest between two punks, only one somehow managed to get a badge pinned on him. Sickening. 0 -
ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING!
This kop sounded like a 13 year old boy! the officer in question here should be hanged!!!! and his "backup" should be bitch smacked till his head fell off for letting the other blue wrapped bacon bite make such a BS arrest.0 -
not only that city but the whole damn st.louis county is like that 0 -
quote:Originally posted by GUNFUNCO
What would you be charging him with? He never even wrote a ticket, much less arrested him.
You may want to note that he made threats but he never followed through on them.
If he had, he could be charged criminally, without much problem.
a few things he could be charged with
# 1 - making a terrorist threat
# 2 - false imprisonment
# 3 - numerous federal civil rights violations0 -
They have more than "standard" power,, they should be held to a higher"standard"... He should loose his job, and be made a FELON....
Jeff0 -
In my interactions with policemen for 60+ years, I have never been treated with anything but respect.
Even when they were busy hauling me off to jail.
The actions of the policeman are unfathomable.
The kid was definitely trying to set SOMEBODY up.
The policeman needs locking up in a rubber room.
Doug0 -
Police do this same thing everyday, it is called a sting. The cop is out of line but from what I heard, SOP. Don 0 -
GUNFUNCO
Anyone who is armed and has the means to arrest anyone on HIS say so (his against yours)(who does the judge believe???) should be held to twice maybe three times the punishment that a normal person faces. Police have a pass when it comes to your word against theirs. Anyone who says any different is either delusional, blind or just plain stupid.0 -
This cop is very cavalier about violating the 4th amendment. Its clear he's in the wrong line of work; he should be a prison guard, not a policeman. 0 -
The sergeant needs to be terminated then criminally charged. A civil rights suit would be appropriate after both the above actions.
He deliberately violated the young mans constitutional rights under color of authority. Since he had no lawful authority to take the actions that he did, his actions were criminal e.g. unlawful imprisonment, threats and intimidation, etc...
Pathetic and inexcusable actions, period. No excuses, no mercy.0 -
I'm just glad the kid had a recording of what happened... 0 -
First of all, I'm not making any excuses for the cop. I already stated my position as far as his actions.
BUT
As far as making a terrorist threat, I don't know what the exact elements of that would be since that would generally be charged by the feds. I highly doubt that this would qualify. And you guys are usually the ones screaming BS when the government overcharges anybody for a crime. Get real on that one.
There was no false imprisonment because he was never imprisoned. He was never even arrested. The kid would have had a valid defense for resisting an arrest IF he was arrested, but since that didn't happen, it isn't an issue.
As far as the numerous civil rights violations, you would have to name them before I could respond. Since you haven't named them, I cannot respond nor am I any kind of expert in that area. Since you all seem to be, I guess that would be up to you to know. Name em if you got 'em.
Lt496-(and I say this respectfully)-Maybe you could elaborate on what civil right violation occurred here. No arrest, No imprisonment. Threats (only) under the color of authority. I did not even see him search the vehicle. A pat down-probably reasonable given the circumstances- (without the threats). So what is your take?
A reasonable person could not have faulted the cop for merely checking out the vehicle in a public place at 2 in the morning in an area where numerous crimes had taken place so the contact was legitimate. It was his actions during the investigative stop that were improper. He accused him of not using a turn signal which was incorrect. (a civil infraction) He spoke in a threatening manner but never carried out the threat. He MAY be able to be charged with an assualt but that would be up to the local prosecutor.
Police ARE held to a higher standard. Any citizen could have said that and nobody would have made a big issue of it. I have seen citizens make far worse threats and no charges were ever filed. A citizen once threatened to kill the judge, the prosecutor and me on a case I once worked on. He was never charged. And the guys own attorney was the witness. Another guy threatened to kill my family. He spent exactly one night in jail. And this was after he pulled a gun on 3 cops and then barricaded himself with his SKS. He got probation and credit for the one night in jail. This cop basically threatened to take him to jail.
As far as to testimony, each juror has the right to determine how much weight to give to the testimony by any person including the police. Police generally get more credibility because most times the people they are dealing with on an arrest either have little or none. If a police officers testimony is unbelieveable, then it should be disregarded. If the suspects is so, same for that.
People need to remember that cops are ordinary people. They have good days and bad. There are good and bad ones. They also have the same rights as anybody else when suspected (and charged) with a crime.
Some of you guys are waaaay outta line when it come to that.
You guys can flame me if you want. What is reasonable works both ways.0 -
At the very least he could be sued for harassment.
If he had been black, they'd tack on a hate crime. Could youhave a hate crime charge based on young vs old- since the cop was so stuck on his age.
There are also a lot of "conspiracy to commit....." things he could be charged with.0 -
quote:Originally posted by BarkingDog
okay after watching the entire video i will say this...i believe the motorist would have been within his rights to shoot and kill the officer. the officer was armed with a handgun and making threats to illegally kidnap and assualt an innocent civilian. therefore, the civilian would have been within his rights to use deadly force to protect his own life. i wish he had.
Not in any way, shape or form! Are you nuts?0 -
Conspiracy wouldn't fly. To have a conspiracy, you have to have 2 or more persons, acting in concert to.......
Harassment is usually charged as stalking and requires 2 or more seperate incidents....(at least in my state. I just looked it up.)
Hate crime, you have to prove that it had something to do with the victims race, color, ethnicity, sexual orientation or so on....
That is what I was refering to above. You must meet all the elements of a crime or no crime occurred. If you aren't familiar with the law, you may not know what I mean.0
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