Obey the first time. I don't understand this goofy notion that you can disregard the law, do whatever you want, and then later say "Yeah ok I'll do what I'm supposed to", and expect no consequences.
I've said this before.... Imagine if you walked in your house, found your daughter beaten and in the process of being raped.... You tell him to get off her. He say screw you, and starts beating her again.
You pull out a massive baseball bat. He looks up "oh, you are going to hurt me?" throws his hands up in the air "nope you can't touch me! I'm complying now! You can't even spit at me now! Haha! You can't do anything because my hands are up and I'm unarmed!"
No.. Just no. I'm going to beat you, not until you stop moving, but until you can't move anymore, and then I'll give what is left of your mangled body to the authorities.
Now I would hope that you understand that. If you don't then, then I get why you are complaining here.
This is the situation in all instances like this. You given an order once. If you refuses, then there are consequences.
The moment she refused to sign because she "didn't deserve to pay a fine for breaking the law".... according to the law, she goes to jail. That's law.
She in effect signed her arrest warrant the moment she refused to sign the $70 ticket.
There is no "I didn't realize there would be consequences, so I want a do-over" game. You make a choice, you face the consequences. She should have immediately gotten out of the car, and put her hands behind her back.
Everything that happened to that lady, was due to the choices she made, and she got what she deserves.
When a police officers tells you to do a lawful order, whether it is sign the ticket, or get out of the car, you do it. Period. End of story. Time to be a grown up and follow the law, or accept the consequences.
There are a few moments where the officer could have attempted to de-escalate the situation. I'm not justifying the lady's behavior, but as I've mentioned before, I hold officers to a higher standard. When they don't focus on de-escalating situations like this, it significantly raises the chance of an erratic person dying over something petty.
1) The lady says "I don't want to pay the 80 dollars". The officer could have calmly explained something like "Ma'am, you're free to dispute the charges in court. However, if you refuse to sign this ticket then I am legally authorized to take you into custody. What would you like to do?"
But he didn't say that or anything close to that. He immediately goes to "Get out of the car!" which causes an erratic lady to act even more erratic. I bet that altercation could have been prevented right then and there if her choices were clearly outlined for her like that. Instead, the cop escalates the situation.
2) After initially refusing to sign the ticket, the lady finally agrees to sign it. The officer easily could have given her the ticket to sign right there, which ends this altercation.
But he didn't do that. He says "Oh we're past that", which causes an erratic lady to act even more erratic.
Your rape analogy is absolutely terrible for the obvious reason that you're equating rape to the signing of a paper. Here's a closer analogy:
You: "Hi. I'm not going to pay for my property taxes this year."
Tax collector: "Sir, you need to pay your property taxes or you will lose your house."
You: "Oh. Ok I'll pay then."
Tax collector: "Nope. Too bad. You already said you wouldn't. Now we're going to take your house."
3) After the lady takes off, the cop justifiably (after his earlier mistakes) takes her out of the truck and attempts to arrest her. It's an old lady so he should be able to restrain her, but nope, he needs to use his taser. If any officers need to resort to tasing an elderly woman because they can't restrain them, then they need a new job. At the very worst, he could have pulled her out of the car and threw her to the ground and then called for backup because he needed help restraining an old lady.
My issue with these details is that the cop escalated in each of them. Issues like these get people killed. Obviously the lady should have behaved differently, but I hold officers to higher standards because this is their job.
Imagine a school counselor who is terrible at counseling young people. This officer, with the right words and actions, EASILY could have prevented all of this shit. And just like the counselor, part of their
job is to protect erratic idiots from themselves. Get off your high horse and
de-escalate the situation. People's lives are at risk when they don't.
I realize that it's often easy to judge when one is not in their shoes, which is why I try to give officers the benefit of the doubt when faced with potentially dangerous criminals. But I think this one should have been handled way differently by the officer.
