Plain clothes "task force" officers making basic traffic stops over seat belts. I mean what could go wrong?
The Scorpion unit has been deactivated after video was released of the brutal beating of the 29-year-old at the hands of officers
amp.theguardian.com
Oh yeah, plain clothes task force officers have a bad habit of f*cking up average citizens. Obviously one should always "just comply" any time some dudes with baseball caps and regular outfits on get out of a regular car, point guns, and bark orders at me because I may not have been wearing a seat belt. Oh but...
"However, early Tuesday evening, CBS 2 obtained a letter issued by Kersten to police Supt. Larry Snelling – in which she wrote that "the available evidence calls into question the veracity" of the claim that a seat belt violation was the initial reason for pulling over Reed.
"Specifically, COPA is uncertain how the officers could have seen this seat belt violation given their location relative to [the] vehicle and the dark tints on vehicle windows," Kersten wrote in the letter on April 1. "This evidence raises serious concerns about the validity of the traffic stop that led to the officers' encounter [Reed]."
And it looks like this unit is already under COPA investigation:
"The letter added that COPA had another investigation open for a traffic stop involving the same five officers, which occurred less than a month earlier and was also purported to be based on a seat belt violation."
Shooting at them was pretty nuts because of the sheer tactical disadvantage, granted he DIDN'T believe they were Cops (or see their badges until it was too late), it was still a poor decision. That said, this entire encounter stinks of these guys targeting certain citizens for whatever reason.