This guy was an idiot. The entire situation could have been avoided by rolling down his window in the first place. He didn't want the police to check his license and let him through. His intent was to stir up shit from the beginning. He even had his camera ready for the inevitable shitstorm. Need proof we don't live in a police state? This idiot walked away with his teeth intact.
Because your natural instinct is to submit to oppressive conduct by police you should not assume everyone is similarly submissive.
I personally have no problem with
properly conducted DUI checkpoints, because they serve an important and necessary purpose. But I have a
big problem with police who have acquired the notion this is the old East Germany and they are the Stasi. And it's important to note that one common reason why police acquire that attitude is the prevalence of
authoritarian submissive individuals who are content to put up with the kind of oppressive treatment we saw in the video. Regardless of that young man's motives he did us all a favor by calling attention to something which should not be tolerated.
The
ostensible purpose of that checkpoint was to examine the condition of drivers for the
singular purpose of detecting DUI. The proper procedure calls for the police officer to
politely request citizen cooperation -- not to behave like North Korean border guards.
When the officer
ordered that driver to
"Roll your window down!," the driver was perfectly within his rights to politely ask why, which is what he did. And the officer is
required to politely inform him of the reason -- which is a DUI inspection. But you saw what actually transpired. And if that sort of behavior is alright with you let me assure you it is not alright with many other Americans who simply don't like being treated as if this is not America anymore.
While it has been made legal to stop cars for the purpose of randomly inspecting for DUI, it is
not legal to stop cars to randomly search for drugs -- which is exactly what the driver in the video was subjected to. His Fourth Amendment protection was clearly violated. And I hope the uniformed bullies who violated it are fired and their supervisors are appropriately sanctioned.
As to your conclusion that the young man was lucky he was able to walk away without losing teeth, let me assure you the only reason it ended that way is having discovered the camera those cops could not be sure they were not being subjected to a state Internal Affairs investigation.
I am eager to learn if that driver has lodged a complaint and what the outcome is.
