Posted on 06/10/2008 7:15:16 AM PDT by decimon
Young female motorist who feared that unmarked car may have been driven by police impersonator is handcuffed because she waited to stop in a well-lit area.
Motorists followed by an unmarked car with flashing police-style lights are often told to activate their flashing emergency lights and wait for the nearest well-lit area before pulling over. An attractive young female motorist who followed this advice found herself held at gunpoint, handcuffed and searched by real police officers in Greene County, Missouri last week.
Just before 2:40am on June 5, twenty-two-year-old Vanessa Kimery passed through one of the state's many speed traps. An unmarked police cruiser pulled behind her vehicle and activated its lights. Kimery immediately put on her flashers and slowed to acknowledge the vehicle behind. She then drove less than a mile to the nearest well-lit area, a convenience store parking lot. For this, Kimery was ordered out of the car at gunpoint and surrounded by three police deputies.
"Put your hands up where we can see them," a sheriff's deputy yelled. "Hands up. Hands up. Turn around. Keep your hands up."
Kimery was handcuffed and led by one deputy away from her vehicle so that the another could enter it to conduct a search. Kimery, in hysterics, was checked for signs of intoxication by two officers who were calm and polite throughout the interrogation. One asked why she was being so emotional.
"Because you put me in cuffs!" she cried. "I'm sorry. I put my flashers on. I thought you could do that."
Kimery had feared that the unmarked car may have been driven by a police impersonator. Exactly one year ago, two women were attacked in Howell County by by a man driving a Ford Crown Victoria with red-and-blue lights mounted on the dash. Several other states have similar problems with robbers and rapists taking advantage of police use of unmarked cars to trap their victims on dark, rural roads.
The deputies released Kimery after writing her a ticket for allegedly driving 10 MPH over the limit and failing to yield to a police vehicle. In the wake of bad publicity on the local television station that broke the story, KYTV, police agreed to drop the failure to yield charge.
bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gon do?
What needs to happen to make this lunacy stop?
Nothing in the story indicates the woman did anything wrong or actually anything more than the cops suggest - driving to a well lit location.
The dropping of the charges would seem to justify my thought this deputy should be fired and allowed to contribute to society in a way more befitting ... such as fast food service or road side trash pickup.
Better rulers public servants.
Fascists in action.
Unmarked cars should be illegal for pulling people over, especially at night.
The woman did what any sane person would have done under the circumstances, but again the cops demonstrated that there is a REAL need for civilian review boards, civilian police directors and an end to bullying by the F.O.P. and P.B.A.
The cops involved should be fired and barred from any future employment in law enforcement.
Jeez.
What is this, police misconduct day on FR?
Did he act according to procedure? If so then the problem is not with him.
I have no trouble picturing the police being told one thing and the citizens another by our elected...blanks.
The police “just want to make it home safely at the end of their shift.”
You, however, can take your chances.
Our police forces need MORE Andy Griffiths and FEWER Barney Fifes.
Unfortunately, most police departments seem to go out of their way to RECRUIT Barney Fifes (or worse yet, Rambo wanna-bes).
Video has been disabled.
She looks like a real threat to these guys, doesn’t she?
Clearly this department has no serious crime to deal with and far too much money in its budget if it can afford to use undercover vehicles for rudimentary traffic enforcement.
Sorry - no sympathy for the deputy whatsoever. If there had been a “policy”, the charges would not have been dropped.
Here I think we have a small man who cuffed and charged a citizen for no reason other than to satisfy his ability to bully.
Hell, I drive to a well lit area to pull over for MARKED police cars.
Some of those guys are CRAZY.
1) Civilian review boards
2) Elimination of the F.O.P. and P.B.A. Like all civil servants, cops have civil service protection, and like all civil servants, they shouldn’t have a union.
3)Replace cop Police Chiefs with Civilian Director’s of Public Safety who report to the governing body of the town instead of to their buddies in blue.
4) Fire these two idiot fascists.
I hope she sues their butts off and wins.
If I were a police officer, I would want the offender to stop in a well lite area. That way I could see them better.
That's all I need to read. No one has any business at the hour. She should have been shot.
OK, not really...
Countdown until someone really says that...3...2...1...
when i stopped, and the officer approached, he had his pistol unholstered. he asked why i didn't stop. i told him that i didn't believe that it was safe FOR HIM to stop on a two lane road, and that it would be safer to pull off into an empty parking lot.
after about 10 minutes, he apologized about taking so long.
he said that i "fit the profile" of a known terrorist fugitive thought to be in the area.
i am a 38 year old white male, of german descent, with blonde hair and blue eyes. hhhhmm..
I'm neither a cop lover or hater and I don't know what happened in this incident. But I wouldn't assume there are no conflicting policies as I've seen this 'damned if you do and if you don't' crap too many times.
I'd like to know what is their policy.
Hand cuffing a frightened young woman for failing to yield a vehicle which didn’t look like a cop car at night?
That’s o.k. if its o.k. under “procedures”?
I thought we straightened that out at Nuremberg.
This story smells. My guess is the unmarked cop car tailgated her at night until she sped up to get away from him. THEN he put on his lights and pulled her over.
I know of this happening to other young women at night.
http://www.greenecountymo.org/web/About/contact_form/sheriff.php
I’m a big supporter of police officers but does anyone else think that sometimes it seems as if some officers think they’re in the military? One only has to look in a law enforcement magazine/uniform catalog to see what I mean.
Is it time to blood test the police as well? This is the kind of news that makes good Law Enforcement Officers (LEOs) wince in acute embarrassment. Personally, were I the ‘decider’ in this case, I would drop ALL CHARGES, and send ‘Barney’ and his partner, to check on lawn watering violations (in the unmarked car).
Jackbooted thugs on a power trip.
If they went after gang-bangers with similar vigor, there would be no gangs.
These wannabe Gestapo cretins are all tough when it is 3 of them on an innocent, frail, sobbing woman who fell into one of their speed traps - a tort to begin with and hardly a crime worth of the application of extreme force and the threat of deadly force.
I guess they kinda like slapping handcuffs on a crying chick. Makes them feel really powerful. Maybe they should carry whips and fur handcuffs in the future - maybe make her slip into a rubber suit and gag her.
It sure beats the heck out of going after real crooks that might put up a fight or shoot back.
With idiots like this protecting us, we are no safer, only subject to more random acts of violence (or threats of such) and encroachment upon our individual liberties.
These cops are thugs and should be relieved of their duties immediately. If she did indeed slow down and put her flashers on and they cuffed her anyway they don’t have the intelligence or the judgement for the job.
“What needs to happen to make this lunacy stop?”
Eliminate “speed traps”
Other than robbing tax payers, there is no reason for police to hide on the side of the road in an unmarked car and then holdup at gunpoint a citizens driving 10 mph over the speed limit on an empty road in the middle of the night.
Lots of winding roads where I live and it bugs me when I come around a turn to see a cop car partially blocking my lane with traffic coming the other way.
these ones look like they’re on steroids.
Still, I have to say after watching the video, that the cop was really quite gentle with the poor girl, and - other than handcuffing her for god knows what reason, with three burly cops there, and her looking like she might tip the scales at 115 lbs or so - she just was hysterical. Once they had handcuffed her, she was inconsolable, and even before that, frankly.
Good point.
But most police forces use unmarked cars for traffic enforcement. They are less visible to the “perps” and allow for more ticket writing and greater revenue generation.
MARKED cars, making themselves as visible as possible on the roads, would make for safer highways, but that is NOT the intended purpose. Revenue generation is the intended purpose.
They should be illegal for all speed limit enforcement. Police will tell you over and over that speed enforcement is all about safety, not writing tickets. Driving unmarked cars, hiding behind bushes, billboards and high medians alll give the lie to that kind of statement. Nothing slows traffic better than a well marked police car by the side of the road. If it was all about safety all traffic cops would drive marked vehicles.
He never said a word about it. I suspect he knew why I did what I did.
Why would there be 3 cops to stop 1 girl? There must be something more important to do in any size community.
What is your general location? tnx...
I have instructed my wife and daughter that under no circumstances are they to pull over...ever for an unmarked police car. If he’s a real cop, they’ll find out soon enough. If they don’t like it, tough.
only 115 pounds, but what about her reach?
Then half the counties in TX would go bankrupt...
cincinnati. the incident happened in delhi.
count yourself lucky that you didn't get "tased, bro."
:)
I was pulled over a few years back down in Texas. US 59 southwest of Houston, heading towards Victoria. Best I can remember it was like 62 in a 55. DPS guy is writing me a ticket when an 18 wheeler drives by, wind from the passing truck blows the trooper’s Stetson over the hood of my car. He immediately stopped writing, ran around the car to get his hat. As he ran back by my window, he yelled, “Slow Down”. He got back in his “unit” and charged down the road after that trucker. He got him about three miles down the way. I slowed Way down passing him.
Or maybe Office Small-D### was upset that she didn't pull over in a dimly lit area where he could have sexually harassed her. Don't laugh, had a good looking female friend get pulled over by a [deleted] who actually admitted he was looking for one of her friends (they look a lot alike and drive similar looking cars). Not for any legitimate reason, either. Charged her with a DUI to cover his tracks. Case got reduced to a non-alcohol charge and slap on the wrist fine by a notoriously "throw the book at 'em" judge.
Friend didn't want to pursue anything after that. Has to work in the crappy town, doesn't want to become a "mark" for this [deleted] and his thug [deleted] friends. My respect for "officers of the peace" thugs with badges has gone down considerably as a result of this and other recent incidents. Now, there are good cops. The problem is that the 90% who are power-mad thugs give the good 10% a bad name...
Baader-Meinhof?
Fascism by police is unacceptable.
How would that happen?
Not really. I customarily pass 3 $100,000 a-year-plus- perks wonders pulled up to check out one unfortunate motorist. They get bored, and unless its a place like Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Detroit or Newark they really don’t have much REAL work to do anyway.
It worked for me. I couldn’t understand but a few words though , she was crying so hard.
These people are idiots. Kick their butts, hard.
When the citizenry is THAT afraid of their State police forces, there is something VERY wrong going on.
I couldn’t get into it.
Guess they felt real powerful making her cry like that.
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