Why did this police officer lie?
Absent cameras this would be yet another life destroyed by a lying cop who falsely claimed the an innocent man pointed a gun at him. This behavior is one of my biggest fears. I am always apprehensive of police officers in isolated areas. Many Americans treat them as bastions of the community. We all say or want to believe that it is a small number of officers that are corrupt. Of course, we cannot prove that.
I am not a police basher. In fact, a few months back I had an encounter with an officer that was the best one I had ever had even though I must admit to always apprehensive by encounters with all cops. I wrote a blog post about it, and the police officer got a commendation for said contact.
The incident in the video is scary. A man parking his pickup truck at a convenient store was in a hurry to use the restroom. He came close to another pickup truck leaving the convenience store. An off-duty police officer drove the other truck. The man had his gun in his door pocket, and it fell out. He immediately put the gun back into the pickup truck. The cop guns a blazing confronted the driver of the pickup truck and seem to order his hands up. He appears to tell him to lie down on the ground. The man followed all of the officer’s requests. The off-duty police officer called for backup and claimed that the driver pointed a gun at him twice.
The video clearly shows that what the officer said happen never took place. Had the convenience store not have the video, it is likely that the driver would be convicted of a felony, spend a lot of time in prison, and destroy his entire life because of a lying officer.
The bad behavior of these cops has consequences. The grand jury indicted the officer who lied about his encounter with Sandra Bland. That action and deception were fatal for an innocent American citizen.
Those who continue to take the word of officers blindly have ample examples that they must question both sides. Most importantly new standards are a must. Cameras are a must. Absent recording devices one cannot convict solely on the word of a police officer.
(r/t ABC13)