Doug

Do you blame the one who threw a 🖕in response to a friendly wave👋 or the one who turned around and went back? In May 2019 in Carey, Ohio, Officer Joshua Snyder of the Carey Police Department waved at Kieran Smith while Smith was walking on a public sidewalk with his wife and young child. Smith responded with a middle finger. Snyder then stopped the family, threatened to arrest Smith for disorderly conduct, detained and handcuffed him in front of his wife and child, and ultimately issued a citation. Bodycam and related footage later showed Snyder giving a supervisor an inaccurate account of the encounter, including claims about Smith refusing to identify himself that did not match what occurred. Smith later filed a federal lawsuit against the Village of Carey. The case settled for roughly $40,000–$46,000. ❓Was what you saw on the video the same as what Officer Snyder told the police chief? ❓When a bodycam records one version of events and the officer's memory records another version, which one should be believed? ❓Is the only real difference here that Smith chose to be an a**hole instead of waving back like a normal person?

👮‍♂️Officer: “You can try this constitutional crap all you want”—does that sound like someone enforcing the law or someone annoyed by the law? February 2015, Houston Texas: HPD Officer Holloway (badge #7428) stopped a man walking and legally open-carrying an AR-15 during an Open Carry Texas 2A audit. The man asked if he was being detained and was told no, so he kept walking. The officer then pulled in front of him, got out with his own rifle, and escalated. When the man said he did not consent to questions, Holloway snapped: 👮‍♂️“You can try this constitutional crap all you want, but I got news for you. I’m part of that 3% that you’re trying to represent, but you ain’t doing nothing.” He demanded ID to check whether the man was a felon, said the man wasn’t allowed to carry “ON MY STREETS,” and threatened to “escalate this another way.” The man was handcuffed, his rifle was taken, and he was locked in the back of the patrol car for ~25 minutes while Holloway called the DA for advice. He was later released with no charges. The officer later indicated he had no reasonable suspicion of a crime to detain him. Long-gun open carry was legal in Texas at the time. The incident was the subject of an Internal Affairs review. No public report was made available. ❓What do you think about the combination of the angry attitude, the 3%er self-identification while detaining someone for exercising a legal right? ❓The 25-minute detention while calling the DA—does that suggest Officer Holloway really did support what the man was doing, as he said at the beginning?