Threatened by Sargent for trying to file a complaint about his officer. Please Help.

EatSleepJeep · 3 months

Find you local university's or law school's legal aid department. Enlist their help in asserting your rights.

There's a video and audio? That is great. it will only serve to show the verbal threats and abuse of power you described.

Is your state a one-party consent state? if so, call the sergeant again and record that call. Suppression of a citizen complaint tends not to go over well, especially in the media.

Be savvy.

Jukeons · 3 months

I gather you are a young person? You need to grow a pair and stand up for yourself. Go in and make your complaint. Take a third party with you. Make a complaint on the Sgt as well.

Stand up for yourself.

baraqiyal · 3 months

As far as specific rights he violated, I don't think the fourth amendment violation for snatching the license out of your hand would hold any weight since you were holding it up for him. Maybe for not returning it when asked.

But he doesn't have to actually violate a right as a prerequisite to you filing a complaint. The lies and threats are certainly unprofessional and should be reported.

The driver should also make a complaint for the unlawful stop.

EnysAtSea · 3 months

Siiiiiigh. Also living in PA here. This is how it goes everywhere here. It should be known that PA is not a state but is a commonwealth and grossly corrupt. They will try to fight you to the end and abuse every false power they think they have to deter you. Grab your lawyer and make a case with them. If you don't have a lawyer, any business sensible attorney will offer you a consultation for free and then you can discuss whether you have a case against the officers or not. Just something to consider.

Tarkaan · 3 months

He's trying to intimidate you. He's violating your right to due process. DOCUMENT EVERYTHING. Then make your complaint. You want people to take advantage of you for the rest of your life?

fluidambient · 3 months

Going to the station and filing a complaint won't get you any resolution but you can try. Be courteous when filing the complaint. Try not to give out too much information before you get the complaint form and just be nice as to not draw attention to yourself.

Let this situation be a lesson in how you handle yourself in the future. Don't give out your ID when you're not a driver. If you're afraid of being arrested by a repeated demand by a cop to ID you can verbally do it. It's difficult to give advice on these situations as it really depends on the individual's desire to fight the system. Legally police must have a reasonable suspicion in order to detain you and demand ID(in states that have stop and ID statutes). If you can, try to have the cop articulate his reasonable suspicion. Often times in videos I see the cop simply cannot do it, or they fabricate a reason, but most often they will cite a law which is actually not a law.

If you can get video evidence while this is happening, great. But I know PA is notorious for being camera grabbers and I know they have a law on the books which makes it illegal even in public to secretly record.

shagreddit · 3 months

Real talk homie, contact a local media outlet small paper or I will be glad to help. Get exact info on the time, street and location etc. of where you were pulled over. We then submit a public information request on the video for being pulled over. If there are any problems with the cops actions then you submit HIS OWN VIDEO as the complaint to internal affairs, file a grievance with his actions.

Filling a police report is serious business and if you even get it off by five minutes of when it occurred or describe the officer as making one to many trips back to the car or you don't exactly get what was said correct when you file the report then THEY WILL ARREST you for filling a false report just to be fucking dicks about it. Then you tell your friends and nobody ever files a report for fear of repercussions. That is their end game to discourage people.

It's easy to go down and file a report for any number of things but as soon as you file one against a cop that shit falls under a microscope.

i_is_surf · 3 months

Ok, I see a few things wrong with your post:

First, your argument is all over the place - when you go into talk to the cop (which you shouldn't just do on a whim) you need to ensure you can articulate your side from the beginning to the end, not the middle to the end, then the beginning.

Second, while it is "professional" to identify yourself and tell the driver why they were stopped during the initial contact, it is not a requirement.

Third, he is in control during the traffic stop, not you or the driver. The repeated requests to know things "right now" or get your license back "when you ask" is not a valid argument. Nor is it applicable under the 4th Amendment. He didn't search you nor seize anything - "holding" is not seizing. So you don't have an argument there.

Fourth, you say PA is not a stop and identify state, yet he didn't stop you to identify you. His story was he stopped you because of a burned out headlight.

Fifth, again something doesn't sound right. That is a very long stop for a headlight being out. Were you giving him an attitude from the onset? Others are correct that having a bad attitude is not a ticketable nor arrestable offense, but depending on PA laws, refusing to hand him your ID can be. You should research the law on "failure to obey a police order" or "failure to follow police direction" something to that effect - certain states have laws on the books like that and barring violation of your rights per the constitution, you are required to do what the cop says.

Now, here is what you should do:

First, to protect yourself, submit a FOIA request for the video of that incident. You want to get the request in ASAP as you don't know if the video would be automatically deleted before the FOIA request was processed.

This way, you can review the video and ensure from the cops standpoint, the headlight doesn't look dim or burned out. Also, you want to ensure you didn't do or say anything wrong. Lastly, you want to hopefully show the video to someone more in the know so they can ensure you didn't do anything wrong either.

Get your ducks in a row first, that way you don't get any blow back for filing a false report or immediately get dismissed as trying to start trouble.

Remember, there is no statute of limitations on an employment grievance so you're not losing anything by taking your time and doing it right.

But if you just walk in there and start accusing people, especially if you have a bad attitude, or you get agitated or provoked to provide a response, your argument will go downhill real quick.

I'm a cop and I assure you, that if you were threatened over the phone, you DO NOT want to go to the police station without getting the tape and reviewing it first.

Don't take what I wrote as condescending or as trying to stop you from filing a grievance. I read your post and everyone else's comments and am trying to help you out as much as possible. Based off of what others have said in this thread, you need to be prepared to show evidence of your claims - especially if this department has a history of incidents like this.

Lastly, if you get the video and it does appear (after your review and a third-party review) that the cop was in the wrong, you need to decide what direction you want to take this. You can either then go to the police department and make a complaint, or you can take it to the FBI as the FBI is the lead agency in police misconduct cases.

Good luck, and if you need more information, you are more than welcome to send me a message and I'll try and help you out as much as possible.

lithpr · 3 months

Be careful. In fact, just drop it. I just deleted the long version of my story- the short version was I saw a cop doing something I found objectionable, went to Sargent (hostile) and Lieutenant (unhelpful). Started being constantly harassed by police, thrown in jail a couple times, been pinked slipped for being crazy, currently on bond.

If I had known what I was going to go through, I would have let the whole thing drop. So not worth it.

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