Traffic Stop Uproar

Well it seems that the interview that I did with Fox 35 10:00 News on the Hillsborough County, FL, Sheriff's Deputy's traffic stop caused quite a bit of controversy. The video of the interview I did is policelink.com's most watched and commented video and I've gotten quite a bit of feedback. I still believe that the deputy lost his control during the stop.

Here is the text of my response to the video's comments on policelink.com. The response was published online this morning.

This is Richard Weinblatt and I wanted to weigh in on the heated run of comments on the Hillsborough County deputy sheriff’s traffic stop.

I was pleased to see that some of the comment writers noted that I said, at the time, that not all of the facts were known. They also acknowledged the fact that the Fox 35 News piece indicated that I said both sides were wrong in how they handled the stop.

However, I was disappointed that many commenters sided with the deputy fully without consideration for the total picture. One even started to attack my background (by the way, I have had many felony arrests as a deputy in a capital county – Santa Fe County, New Mexico, a 2,500 square mile high crime county with minimal backup). The issue is not me…the issue is the traffic stop and the higher standards that we as professional law enforcers should be held.

My question is, would you want your mother, sister, or wife treated in this manner? The deputy stopped this woman at Community University Hospital where she was heading to see her heart attack-stricken father. She waited for three minutes and then yelled to the deputy that she was pulling into the hospital’s parking lot. The deputy told Hillsborough County investigators that he did not hear her. It was at that point he chased her into the lot. He was so pumped up that he tried to pull her out of the car while her foot was on the brake and the car was in gear. She also still had her seat belt on and he could not yank her out of the car at first. After he gets her out of the car, he yells not the loud repetitive verbal commands that he should; rather he taunts her out of anger saying that Good, now she won’t see her father. She hits the trunk hard enough that her feet come off the ground. Is that an example of a professional, compassionate, and under control deputy sheriff? I don’t think so.

And we wonder why the public hates us (and I’m not just talking about the drug dealers, low lifes, etc.). We are our own worst enemies in this business when we fail to use discretion properly.

That backup deputy got there in seconds when the deputy called for assistance. That same deputy, who was up the road, could have gone into the hospital entrance (which was right there) and verified the story. The deputy could have also mailed her the ticket later. That is allowed under Florida law. The deputy could have followed her a short distance into the parking lot and into the emergency room to verify the story. Any one of these options would have stopped the situation from escalating. That’s our job as professional law enforcers.

Do people lie to us, yes. Do people take off with bad agendas on their minds, yes. The woman was wrong for taking off into the hospital parking before the stop was concluded. But it is clear her anger is not directed at the deputy. She keeps pleading about her father. Hillsborough County’s own internal investigation revealed that the deputy should have controlled the situation better and not used excessive force at the end. He got five days off and the woman had all charges dropped.

We need to see the big picture of this situation. We are the professionals that are held to a higher standard of emotional control. The Fox 35 reporter said to me that maybe the deputy had a bad day. My response was, and still is, we can’t have a bad day in law enforcement. We have a bad day, lose our temper, and dirt bags get our badges and sometimes people die. We can’t lower ourselves to the standards of dirtbags and lose control. Therefore a bad day can cause us to lose control and our badge to even a dirt bag. We should not give them that satisfaction.

We are the most misunderstood of professions. It is time for us in policing to explain to the public, that we all work for, what we do and why we do it. And we must point out errors where they occur and work to fix them. An open-minded examination has to take place.

Now is not the time in law enforcement’s history to circle the wagons and protect that which cannot be fully justified. My hat is off to the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office administration in Tampa for righting the wrong.

I believe that the response reflects the views of other professional law enforcement folks.