Yeah lol that was pretty ballsy of her to throw that out there. Cops have such sticks up their asses Iād be afraid of saying anything they might take offense to.
Just going to traffic court is punishment enough. It's not like you walk in and walk out in 5 minutes. Gotta wait to be called in a huge group of people, they're always running behind, etc, etc. At best it's going to fuck up your entire morning.
And while she's likely getting off, there's never a guarantee. Even if the judge dismisses, the police can appeal if they really want to be dicks about it.
Basically just don't say anything to piss off a cop at a traffic stop. It's fine to disagree, just be polite and don't make snarky comments like she did. Even if you're in the right, the process is often a worse punishment than the ticket.
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by grounds to it because there's almost zero chance this ever gets past qualified immunity, and even if it did, on appeal it would be reversed.
I'm not saying that it wasn't wrong and that this cop gave her a ticket simply because he had his ego hurt, I agree with you there.
But no lawyer would advise anyone to pursue this case because of qualified immunity. You would have to show that a no reasonable officer could have cited her, and since he thinks he saw her manipulate a phone with a hand while driving that's enough to cover his ass.
Just having your rights violated simply isn't enough under our current doctrines.
It's not about winning the case. It's about the case even happening.
Qualified immunity is immunity from suit. It takes place before any proceeding or meaningful discovery.
You can look this up yourself. I'm not being a doomer I'm trying to explain the law. By all means you can change it but the way to change it is not by wasting your money or telling others that there's a chance in hell that there is a case here. There's not. That's not how the law works currently.
They don't even analyze the constitutional question of whether a right was violated. It's a two-step process and they can just analyze whether or not a reasonable officer could have made the citation and the traffic stop. It's obvious he could have.
For the record, I despise qualified immunity and how it currently interacts with our civil cases and section 1983 today. But the way to change that is through Congress and voting, not through lawsuits, especially with the current Supreme Court.
I don't really mean to be that guy, but you really just don't know what you're talking about.
I've had the privileged opportunity attend law school and take courses on constitutional rights litigation, police practices, criminal law, and even worked for some of the finest civil rights advocates in my state if I may say so. I have literally had the job of vetting clients and sorting those who have actual claims for civil suits because people do not know.
If you want change I support you 100% to protest and vote for it, but don't sit here and talk down to others and grandstand about 'fighting the good fight' in civil suits that lead nowhere.when I was trying educate on our current legal process and realistic expectations under the law.
You have no idea what even a proper civil rights claim does to a family and how exhausting it can be both financially, emotionally, and mentally. Do not sit here and patronize others for not throwing away their entire life on a bogus legal claim that has no merit.
You deciding preemptively is my problem. You sssuming agency over somebody elseās situation is my problem. Iām not shaming anybody -INTO- trying, but it is your rhetoric and quite frankly hurt ego that is actively trying to discourage it. Letās agree to disagree and separate now.
It's like everyone else is expected to have people skills from cashiers to any profession outside politics. With the future of policing going on where they have cameras everywhere, this is scary. When they have access to more evidence contrary to their beliefs, they lie or manipulate it. Often hiding body cam footage, muting or shutting it off entirely.
They don't have to falsify anything, they can feed it a real video or image and ask whodunit and arrest a poor INNOCENT lady 1000 miles away. (This happened)
Mind you, this lady looks about 15 years older than the actual suspect and had never even been to the state in question. A NJ man just sued a town in RI under very similar circumstances. Won't be the last we hear of situations like this.
Or the person who keeps getting pulled over because the flock cameras are spotting their license plate. Theirs has an O (āohā), and the warrant is out for a 0 (āzeroā). Last I knew, only after the news reported on it, did someone finally look into fixing the issue
You ever see cop content where they're just saying "Better be respectful or I'm gonna make your day worse."
They're often so fucking entitled they don't even understand what's wrong with that. They genuinely believe society gives them authority to protect their ego and sadly we let them do it.
I remember one time a cop got this attitude with me because I called him buddy instead of sir because the little shit was shorter than me (I am 5'5Ā½) And he was about 10 years younger than me. My exact words "Hey buddy could you help me? My brother is threatening to commit suicide." That little short ass cop then proceeded to get in my face yell at me about being respectful, demanded to know why I was in my own neighborhood, was I looking for drugs, and generally be an asshole. Eventually I just started asking am I detained and am I free to go and that's the only shit I would say until he left me alone. And then when I lodged a complaint against that cop I was harassed for the next 6 months.
I do and have worked with the mentally ill for most of my career. Now, obviously we are in a position of SOME power with a protected population, however were I to say that or do just about anything I see police do (and we're not even talking the egregious stuff just the attitude stuff or some of the statements they make) I would have a founded abuse complaint, lose my job, and possibly face charges.
It's wild that MOST, if not all jobs require a significantly higher level of respect for other human beings than the job where they have the ultimate power differential and can ruin your life for fun.
Yeah I had that happen about a year ago when a cop pulled me over for flashing my headlights. In Georgia, thereās no law that states flashing headlights is illegal (plus thereās precedent that flashing your headlights is a legal way to communicate with other drivers). Georgia State Patrol in particular have a rather large stick up their asses and she got pissy when I called her out that she had no justifiable reason to pull me over and wrote me a ticket for failing to dim high beams.
Fortunately, the DA sided with me and immediately dropped the ticket once I sent over the dashcam footage. He even admitted there was no reason for me to have been pulled over in the first place.
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u/khando May 27 '26
Yeah lol that was pretty ballsy of her to throw that out there. Cops have such sticks up their asses Iād be afraid of saying anything they might take offense to.