re: Virginia police officers threatened Army Lt. during stop (Body Cam footage included)

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then you COMPLY as soon as you stop.

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How do you comply with "Put your hands outside of the car now!!! Put your hands out and turn the car off! Keep your hands outside of the car!! Open the door!" ???

Had the nitwit simply said "exit the car with your hands up," you'd have a point. Instead he gave orders which were impossible to "comply" with. Further, his obvious agitation would be concerning as hell to an innocent target.

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and my personal experience ...
I was wearing my white lab coat and scrubs in route to a life threatening hospital emergency, and got pulled one morning on the interstate. After pulling over, the cop was sitting in his car behind me on the shoulder for an inordinately long time. So I finally stepped out of my car to explain the situation to him. He threw open his door, crouched behind it, reached for his holster, and screamed for me to get back in the vehicle

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Ignoring the fact that you were stupid for getting out of the vehicle

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Good Lord! I missed this BS originally.

A man was dying in the ER. You clear on that? At the time I arrived the team was preparing to start chest compressions. Got it?

With interventions he lived. But had I let Jethro the cop continue to play with himself in the squad car, the situation wouldn't have ended so well. I'm sure though the patient and his family would have preferred I not hurry things along with the damn traffic stop.

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An officer approached from a cover position on the drivers side. The driver wasn't exactly complying, but he was also not posing any threat, and the officer could have simply asked him to roll down his back window to validate nobody else was in the car. As long as the guy was calm, and the officers could see his hands, they could have told him why he was being pulled over and worked with him.

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this is the part that is bad on both sides of this

they followed him, he pulls over and stops. Then he refuses to get out of the car for quite a while. The situation didn't go from 0 to 100 instantly, it went from 0 to 50 because of his driving for 1.5 miles with them following him and then his refusal to get out. Young cop played it pretty cool for the most part. It didnt go from 50 to 100 until bald cop showed up and got really frustrated and angry.

At this point bald headed guy starts going ballistic and scaring the shite out of the Lt. But let's not act like the Lt. wasn't trying to maintain control of the situation, he was by trying to diffuse the situation by continually asking questions, stating his military status, respect for police, etc but still refusing to get out. Then he said he wasn't getting out and it was on after that. The cops were not going to let him diffuse the situation. What would have diffused the situation was getting out and laying on the ground.

So bald cop chose to escalate instead of de-escalate and it all went to hell. Refusing the cuffs only made it that much worse.

One thing to think about here, the Lt. had a gun next to his seat in the car. If he was a different kind of guy then everything the cops did would have been justified if the Lt reached for that gun. They know what kind of guy the Lt is in hindsight, they didn't know what kind of guy he was when this all happened.

these situations are perfect examples of how in the interest of safety, on the scene you are a threat until proven not a threat. Some people just cant handle that and try to resist police authority. But based on the videos like the NM State Trooper murder, the LEO Policy and the courts are going to side with the LEO most of the time.