This reminds me of Sandra Bland who was put into jail for three days because of improperly signaling a lane change. Police in the US is totally out of control it seems.
She was put into jail for committing an unwritten infraction called "Pissing Off the Police"
Most officers feel entitled to a considerable amount of respect and many of them are prone to use their discretion in order to extract revenge for perceived personal insults. This has always been the case. Recently we have technology that increasingly exposes this and other sorts of wrongdoing.
Don't they? I always thought that the current outrage was more along the lines of, "Look guys, we're supposed to be past this 'killing black people for being black' thing, and anyway we can all see you doing this stuff now, so why are you still doing it? Seriously, stop it already!"
I certainly could be wrong, that's just my vague impression.
Unless more video becomes available or the trooper changes his story, all the evidence we will ever have that an assault took place is the trooper's word. So, a judgement on this is really a judgement on the character of the trooper as to whether or not you think he might lie or exaggerate his account of events in order to attempt to cause a certain result. My opinion of the trooper's character is not favorable in this respect. Without regard to our conclusions about the trooper's character though, we ought to at least be able to agree that it was never necessary for the trooper to order her to exit her car, and thus it was not necessary for Bland to be jailed.
The disturbing part of the Sandra Bland incident is that police officers see nothing wrong with the way she was treated. And her death being ruled a suicide was vindication for them.
I know this is a generalization and that I should probably cite sources. But you are welcome to find discussion forums on your own.
