So the truck driver stops his vehicle and waits for the officers to approach and tell him why he was stopped. The driver of the police car, the one with the tattoos speaks to the truck driver and gives him no clear indication why he was stopped. He mentions the concealed carry permit and the asks for the truck registration. The truck driver attempts to retrieve the registration AS ASKED and the tattooed state police officer starts yelling "hands, hands." Immediately without provocation the incident becomes confrontational. There is a gun drawn and the truck driver is now in peril of his life. The confrontation becomes a matter of the truck driver submitting to search and seizure.
He does tell the officer driver he was going to meet his mother. That makes for a short conversation as the police continue to harass and endanger the well being of this truck driver.
The truck diver exits his vehicle and is hand cuffed. It is better than being dead. I am sure long about the time the cuffs went on he figured he was going to keep breathing as he made up his mind there was nothing he could do with this circumstance that wouldn't cost him his life. So, he did what he was told to the letter. I have to wonder if the truck driver also noticed the tattos of the officer driver and that they were a Caucasian team.
At first the truck driver is frisked and has his pants pockets turned inside out, which means all his ID is now in the possession of the police. He has a modern day wallet that protects credit cards from identity theft. That will be apparent later.
The truck driver is positioned on the hood of the patrol car so that the dashcam can't record the officers activity in and around the blue RAM truck. The police partner is the one that is primarily out of camera view. The driver has no control as to whether anything is planted in his vehicle and there would be no video to that effect. Neither of the officers are wearing bodicams. Everything we know about the scene is through the dashcam.
As the driver is patiently waiting to be released after the officers find that he is lawful in his person and possessions there is at least one woman witness. She stops her car and wants to know what is going on. It is unclear that this might be his mother because at one point there is a phone ringing and of course the truck driver doesn't answer.
The woman carries on and actually is saying things like, "Would this be happening to a white man?" But, the really astounding part that should not be lost on the witnesses dedication to purpose, is that office partner literally tosses the truck driver's wallet on the hood of the car and then pulls his concealed carry permit out of his pocket. See, these officers had ever intention of arresting this man for carrying a loaded weapon without carrying his permit to do so. I am convinced officer partner was going to destroy the concealed carry permit before they were able to get to the station for the booking into the system.
The woman witness is successful in ending the arrest. The handcuffs are removed and all during the time the officers are releasing this AMERICAN they are attempting to deprogram him as to what they were doing and how lawful it was. The truck driver is made to believe all that didn't happen and I have to believe he was so relieved to be returning to his blue RAM truck that any threat to his life, any abuse and embarrassment he sustained didn't matter because the officers convinced him it was a routine when finding an African American man that conceals carries.
There are more and more African American men and women seeking to be on the right side of the law by not only owning a gun through proper channels, but, operating one with a lawful permit. The numbers are there that proves the new gun owners are a majority of minorities, more than 50 percent.
The State of Michigan has a separate concealed carry permit that looks exactly like the one in the upper left corner. The state does this because the permits are issued at the county level. The driver's license is issued at the state level. So, the counties use the picture already affiliated with the state driver's license and simply issues a permit that looks very much like a driver's license.
In this video it is unclear at the onset of the circumstances if the truck driver tells the officers he has a gun in the vehicle and has a concealed carry permit. That information now is mandatory in the State of Michigan when a person conceal carries. If approached by an officer the citizen has to tell the officer I conceal carry and there is a gun in the vehicle. Most gun organizations (of course, they facilitated this phenomena) will WARN their members that it is best to keep hands at 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock on the steering wheel when approached by an officer and as soon as a conversation engages to state the weapon is in the car as she/he has a concealed carry permit. That is mandatory now. A citizen has to openly state their personal information about a weapon in their possession or they have broken the law. It is unclear at the point of telling a police officer about the gun whether that can lead to a search and proof of what the driver stated.
There are so many violations of civil and personal rights in this video it made me think it was staged by a gun club somewhere. But, all information states this is real and this truck driver's life was in danger in the hands of two White Supremacists State Police officers.
I find the entire encounter disgusting and very threatening for any race of American.
I don't believe in free flowing weapons in the USA. I sincerely don't. I don't have a problem with New York requiring concealed carry permits for those that demonstrate they are qualified and/or trained to use a gun. The question among gun activists is that "qualifying' can be a reason to examine the race of a person. Perhaps black men in NYC aren't allowed to have a gun, but, Bernie Goetz (click here) can protect himself from young black men.
This video is really disturbing. I would like to believe it is produced for reasons of propaganda and that "I really don't trust the government" feeling. But, to me, it is more reason to remove guns and the threat at any level they cause.
Good night.
