Posted on 10/17/2015 7:05:07 AM PDT by ilovesarah2012
The family of a Michigan teen who flashed a cars brights at a sheriff sergeants SUV and wound up dead filed a wrongful death lawsuit Wednesday.
A complaint on behalf of slain 17-year-old Deven Guilford accuses Eaton County Sheriff's Sgt. Jonathan Frost of unconstitutional violations of privacy and excessive force in a Feb. 28 traffic stop in the rural central Michigan county outside Lansing.
Guilford flashed the headlights of the car he was driving at the sheriff departments new SUV as Frost drove it the opposite way on State Highway 43, according to the complaint. The Ford Explorer had improperly bright or misaimed headlights and Frost had stopped two other drivers for flashing their lights at him that night, the lawsuit said.
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
Understand and agree. But in looking at the body cam footage, this Sergeant was very patient it appears to me, and the kid was (rightfully or wrongly) resistive and nonresponsive to commands. Whether you agree with the system or not, the one who drastically escalated the stop was the kid.
That’s what I do as well. Same reasoning, too.
I found it best to not argue with officers if they have the facts right, but you can explain to them, as long as you are willing to accept the ticket they might write, your case that you will explain to a judge.
I once told an officer that the reason I was speeding was because it was the type of road, that if I were in the city, would have allowed me to drive at a higher speed. He asked me why I didn’t see the well posted signs and I told him because my eyes were on the curvy and hilly road and I wanted to drive safely.
He let me off with a warning. :)
Arrogant little prick high on marijuana who was uncooperative and assaulted the officer. All he had to do was comply. That was the last stupid decision he ever made.
“If we had any trouble, it would have been because of him.”
I worked with a couple of guys like that over the years. They could start a riot in an empty church.
I’ll add that it was extra fun to do it back in the early 80’s. I had an Opel GT that I did “friday night” rally’s with. It had Cibie Z beams for mains, and I had replaced the large round front turn signals with 5 1/2” headlight bullets from Bowwow and installed Cibie pencil beams. As one of my rally buddies said, it looked like 747 landing lights.
i.e. people would dim down pretty quickly.
Agree. The original reason for the stop was questionable at best, but the driver was the one who caused things to turn violent.
Thats fine, but if I fight back against a cop, I expect to be tasered, brutally man-handled, cuffed, jailed and taken before a judge but not shot dead 7 freaking times!
The cop was beaten a lot worse than Zimmerman. If shooting Trayvon Martin was justified, then in what sense was this shooting not?
I have read claims that Frost’s facial injuries were actually caused by the recoil, that initial reports said the officer was struck in the abdomen, and that later reports described facial injuries “sustained during the altercation” rather than “inflicted by Guilford.”
That said, Frost was a stupid prick for pulling Guilford over - when multiple people flash you, there is something wrong with your lights - Guilford was a stupid traffic-stop lawyer for not handing over his license, etc, and fatally stupid for attacking Frost.
I'm guessing that he was not compliant because he was absolutely stunned for being pulled over after trying to do something nice.
Imagine you are walking on a sidewalk and pass a beat cop. You say "hello, officer". The cop responds by ordering you to stop and produce identification. That just might cause you to lose your focus.
So, yeah, the kid was wrong by not obeying the cop's commands. But I can understand his noncompliance here. And I blame the cop ultimately, because it was the cop who stopped the kid for no good reason.
It’s not a Louis L’Amour story. You start physically attacking me and I will do what gun training tells me to do:
1. never brandish a gun unless you plan to shoot it.
2. Never shoot a gun unless you shoot to kill.
And to my attacker I say, never bring fists to a gun fight.
What difference does it make when someone signs up?
This story is not about the reason the guy was pulled over. It is about the activity that led to the shooting. If the guy was, in fact, physically attacking the officer, the officer did the right thing.
This, even if the officer had no valid reason to pull the guy over. I would NEVER attack an officer unless I thought I could win. That means I expect to exterminate him with a fairly large caliber pistol. I’d have to fear for my life and safety to do that.
Eh. Kid on dope gets weird, beligerent, and attacks cop. Winds up dead.
I have the same amount of sympathy for him that I have for Michael Brown... none.
Had the citizen not been pulled over, the entire incident would never have taken place.
Sure looks to me like that cop before he brutally shot that poor teenager, beat the snot out of the kid’s fist. With his face.
BTW, I am a volunteer EMT and when we got a new first responder vehicle, other drivers kept flashing their lights at me, and I noticed that my regular beams were lighting the trees thirty feet up.
Our fleet manager adjusted the lights, but maybe this is a problem with new emergency vehicles - really bright lights aimed high?
We have to drill into our kids that in these situations they are to comply and if they are arrested, it can be sorted out
Struggle of any type will not end well for the civilian
Having witnesses if they can summon any is crucial
I do suspect this cop is lying and unbalanced because of his comments about fearing a “ militia” ... C’mon man. Save it for DHS indoctrination
Can’t you just be nice?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.