re: Greg Kelly on NewsMax is wrong. That black lieutenant was just fine.

quote:

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The guy was right to find a lit area to pull over. He was right to record video of the interaction with the police, and he had a legal right to have a gun with him. I was just watching and GK was doubling down on this situation. Made me sick. Put yourself in that situation. I'm glad the military us supporting him and saying he acted calmly and did nothing to escalate the situation.

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I have not researched the background of any of this - but I see absolutely nothing in what has been made public that leads me to the following conclusions:

The cops in this case were assholes = motivation not relevant

The Lt did what I hope I would have done facing the same conflicting instructions, with the knowledge I had done absolutely nothing wrong - just trying to stay alive in the face of totally irrational actions by guys with guns pointed at me. (My actual fear is that I would not have been as careful as the Lt was in refusing to put his hand back in the car to undo the seatbelt and open the door. My compliant streak may have led me to follow either or both of those 'orders' only to be shot for 'disobeying the first' order.)

To me this has all the markings of incompetence on the part of the police at the scene, combined with a manufactured sense of absolute authority. And it doesn't matter to me if the Lt had some as yet undiscovered really bad stuff in his background - in the moment he did the only rational, safe, and compliant thing he could do.