Police Arrest Biker....

........and take him to jail over an "obscured license plate"?

Are you effing kidding me? I've never seen a more bogus arrest in my life!

Gotta love the GoPro tho, it recorded everything, including the officer shoving him onto the back seat of the squad car ans slamming the door on him - twice!

From Autoblog

Motorcyclist Chris Moore was riding on a Dallas, Texas freeway among a group riders out for Memorial Day. Moore was wearing a helmet camera which was capturing not just other riders, but a healthy police presence around the motorcade. The following patrol cars could be explained by stories that during the Memorial Day ride last year riders got so rowdy that they shut down the entire freeway.

Moore was actually riding slower than other riders around him, and was surprised to be pulled over by Dallas Deputy Sheriff James Westbrook. When Moore protests that he isn't doing anything wrong and asks why he's been stopped, Westbrook tells him he's going to take Moore's camera to use as evidence against the other riders in the group who were guilty of violations. Moore tells the officer he can't do that, and after Westbrook gets Moore's paperwork, he retires to his car. When he reemerges he tells Moore that he's arresting the motorcyclist for having an obscured license plate. Moore protests but it does him no good – he's booked and spends hours in jail.

In response to Dallas television station WFAA airing Moore's video, the department is launching an internal investigation into Westbrook's actions. The department did release dash-cam footage of other motorcyclists, not Moore, antagonizing patrol cars during the ride – but no one is questioning why the police were there or whether anyone at all should have been pulled over. And even though Moore himself could have been less antagonistic when he was pulled over, it appears it he may have been busted for flimsy, and perhaps unconstitutional, reasons.

Now, watch the footage and judge for yourself.

Biker alleges Dallas Sheriff Deputy made up charge to seize video evidence (RAW) - YouTube

 

We've been discussing this on another forum I belong to also, and a couple of salient points have been made.

First, we don't know what was happening a few miles up the road, were people calling the Popo on their cells complaining about antic of the riders? There was a significant police presence on the road beside the riders in the early part of the vid.

We also don't know if there have been incidents in previous months leading up to this.

Second, would the officers have behaved differently if the rider they pulled over turned out to be my age - 63 - instead of a "punk kid"?

If you watch the first 3 min or so of the vid, you'd be hard pressed to see any misbehavior, especially by the rider doing the videoing - all the riders were in the right lane, and traffic was driving by in the other lanes at a considerably higher speed. Again, we don't know what happened before.......if anything.

Although some what antagonistic, the kid's questions were not out of line. The first thing the arresting officer said set the tone for the whole event IMHO, when he told the kid he was confiscating his camera and video. My response would have been the same - no, you're not. Then why did you stop me, I wasn't commiting any violations. The fact that the officer didn't answer that question also put him in the wrong IMHO.

The officer responded with violence too - third strike.

Why didn't they simply give him a fix it ticket if his plate was obscured? Maybe that's a jailable offence in Texas, I'd like to know if it is - I can't believe it would be. The officer also did not answer this question when the kid asked him.

Lastly, how did the video get to the TV station and on You tube if they confiscated it? At the end of the video the officer can clearly be seen removing the camera from the helmet......