The Case of the Non-Compliant Motorist

Posted on | September 5, 2020 | 3 Comments

 

“Step out of the car.”

This is a simple sentence. You don’t need a Ph.D. in linguistics to understand the meaning of “step out of the car.” When this sentence is spoken by a man with a badge and a pistol, the driver of a motor vehicle has a legal obligation to comply with the officer’s command.

Notice the word “command.” The cop is not requesting that you exit your vehicle, he is commanding you to do so — it is an order, and the policeman has legal authority to compel your compliance. Your failure to comply with the officer’s lawful order thereby results in the officer gaining authority to use physical force against you.

Nowadays, police are trained in what are called “de-escalation tactics.” If you ever get pulled over for a traffic infraction, you can expect the police officer to be very polite, even cordial, as he asks for your license and informs you of your excessive speed or whatever. Cops are trained to talk nice like this, because it helps encourage cooperation. And if you watch a lot of videos on the Police Activity YouTube channel, like I do, you notice a pattern in the behavior of criminals — the kind of people who mistake courtesy for weakness. The law-abiding citizen feels embarrassed when he gets pulled over for a traffic infraction, and responds to the policeman in an apologetic manner: “I’m sorry, officer, I was in a bit of a hurry, I didn’t realize it was a 45 mph zone,” etc. Citizens respect the law, and therefore feel shame when they are caught breaking the law, even in the most ordinary and harmless ways. Criminals? Not so much.

One of the hallmarks of a criminal personality is the shamelessness with which they break the law. Criminals do not respect the law — they lack any proper sense of justice — and so, no matter what the law is, or how serious their breach of the law, criminals tend to be defiant in their behavior toward anyone attempting to enforce the law.

Consider the case of Deon Kay, who had a pistol in his hand when he was shot dead by police in Washington, D.C. Our nation’s capital has very strict gun-control laws; liberals support these laws, with which I strongly disagree. Yet liberals are now protesting the shooting of Deon Kay, despite his open defiance of the city’s gun-control laws.

Deon Kay, the latest martyr of the Black Lives Matter movement. DC is rioting in his name. pic.twitter.com/l9cqhi1qTR

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) September 3, 2020

Video Surfaces of 'Teen Boy' Deon Kay, Who Brandished a Firearm at Police Before Fatal Officer Involved Shooting https://t.co/MRSFAioIHc pic.twitter.com/ioduN4q7Ul

— Cassandra Fairbanks (@CassandraRules) September 3, 2020

Question: Exactly how are gun-control laws supposed to be enforced? What do liberals think should happen when gangsters flagranlty advertise their violation of gun-control laws, as did Deon Kay and his buddies, by posting online images of themselves with their weapons? This type of defiant behavior is, as I say, the hallmark of a criminal personality, and no one’s life is safe when such behavior is tolerated. Every simple traffic stop has the potential to become a life-or-death situation.

You see this demonstrated over and over in Police Activity videos. The criminal has been pulled over by the police, and the officer has some reason to suspect there might be drugs or weapons in the vehicle, or else there is an outstanding warrant for the driver’s arrest. The driver often seems to be compliant up until the moment the cop asks him to step out of the car, and that’s when the situation spins out of control. Either the suspect pulls a gun, initiating a shootout, or else he takes off in his car, seeking to escape arrest. Say hello to Braily Andres Batista-Concepcion.

 

Batista-Concepcion, 22, believes he is a victim of “excessive force” by police in Raleigh, N.C. Here is a description of his arrest:

On January 14, 2020 at approximately 9:30 a.m., Raleigh Police Department officers responded to a report of a hit and run in the 3500 block of Wake Forest Road. Before officers arrived on the scene the suspect vehicle fled the area and was involved in a second hit and run in a parking lot at St. Albans Drive and Wake Forest Road. While fleeing the scene of the second collision the vehicle struck a pole at 4320 Wingate Drive. A short time later, an officer spotted a vehicle matching the description from the three earlier hit and run incidents driving erratically on Navaho Drive. The officer initiated a traffic stop and observed that the driver appeared to be impaired while transporting three passengers. When Mr. Batista-Concepcion ignored repeated commands to place his hands on the wheel, the officer ordered him to get out of the vehicle. Mr. Batista-Concepcion failed to follow the officer’s commands and officers used force to remove him from the vehicle. Braily Andres Batista-Concepcion was subsequently charged with DWI, three counts of Hit and Run, two counts of Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor, Simple Possession of Marijuana, and Resist, Delay and Obstruct.

OK, so this guy was completely wasted at 9:30 in the morning, smoking weed and driving around with three other people in the car — including at least one minor — and endangering public safety:

“We just got ran into,” one man tells a 911 dispatcher. “And the guy took off, twice. He ran into us twice and took off.”
In another call to 911, a woman tells dispatch, “They hit me. And then I stopped at the red light and they looked in the mirror and they were trying to back up and hit me again.”

Batista-Concepcion is a menace to society, a dangerous criminal, and why do you think the cops got irritated when he “ignored repeated commands to place his hands on the wheel”? Isn’t it just common sense that someone who deliberately rams his car into other vehicles might possess weapons? If the cop says “keep your hands where I can see them,” and you refuse to comply with that command — it is not a request, but a command — the cop has good reason to fear for his own safety. And keep in mind the cop didn’t just pull over Batista-Concepcion for a minor traffic offense, but three separate hit-and-run incidents.

OK, now it’s time to watch the video of Batista-Concepion’s arrest:

 

As I say, Batista-Concepcion claims to be a victim of “excessive force,” but the local District Attorney seems to think otherwise:

The Wake County District Attorney refused to ask the State Bureau of Investigation to investigate after a video of a violent arrest, which showed a Raleigh officer punching and kneeing a man, surfaced on social media.
After reviewing the video with the SBI, Raleigh Police Department officials said they met with Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman to review the body and dash camera video of the incident. Freeman decided not to request SBI involvement but left the door open for SBI assistance should it be deemed appropriate as the investigation unfolds.
“Traditionally the State Bureau of Investigation is asked to review use of force cases involving the use of lethal force. This case does not involve the use of lethal force,” Freeman said. “Additionally after reviewing the video of the incident, I believe interviews conducted by the Raleigh Police Department, which I have requested to be recorded, will provide full information for a decision to be made as to whether the officers’ conduct was criminal. If follow up investigation is needed, the State Bureau of Investigation may be asked at that time to conduct it.”

Here is the Raleigh Police Chief’s press conference:

 

“One of the passengers speaks about he wishes he had his 40, which is often the language referencing a gun. It is the goal, and it will always be the goal, of the Raleigh Police Department and all of its members to protect and serve the public in a safe and courteous and professional manner. . . . Policing requires the help and cooperation of all of us. . . . No officer wants to use force or become involved in a deadly force encounter.”

In a situation such as was caused by Batista-Concepcion’s non-compliant behavior, what do we expect police officers to do? What is the alternative when a driminal refuses to comply with lawful orders?

Without regard to what, if anything, becomes of the “excessive force” complaint in this case, I predict that Batista-Concepcion will soon be in prison, or else in the graveyard, as a result of his criminal personality. He is a bad person — a defiant and shameless law-breaker — and such people have a tendency to meet a violent death.

ADDENDUM: Permit me to add this quote from Edmund Burke:

“Is it because liberty in the abstract may be classed amongst the blessings of mankind, that I am seriously to felicitate a madman, who has escaped from the protecting restraint and wholesome darkness of his cell, on his restoration to the enjoyment of light and liberty? Am I to congratulate a highwayman and murderer who has broke prison upon the recovery of his natural rights?”

This is the dilemma posed by such cases as Batista-Concepcion and Deon Kay. An obsessive devotion to “liberty in the abstract,” which characterizes the attitude of some of my libertarian friends, will always encounter problems in practical application, where madness and/or criminality renders a certain number of people incapable of responsible enjoyment of liberty. It is one thing, really, for a handful of decadent bohemian intellectuals to engage in drug abuse and sexual hedonism (e.g., the “Beat Generation” of the 1950s) and quite a different thing when such behavior becomes normative among the less privileged lower classes. The vicious habits of Allen Ginsberg as a Columbia University student could only cause so much trouble. However, when Ginsberg became celebrated as a prophetic voice, and emulation of his vices was hailed as “liberation,” the repercussions for society as a whole were much more serious. It is difficult to trace a direct line of causation from Ginsberg and the Beatniks to the death of Deon Kay, but this difficulty doesn’t mean that the causation is wholly imaginary.

 

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