But before [the deputy] could get very far with his explanation, Ms. Thomas held up her right arm. There was no phone in it. There had never been a phone in it because she has no right hand.
You could say she was right 'armless
Hi dad, it’s me, also dad. 🤝
Rule #1 for cops - you are never wrong.
What an asshole.
This just goes to show that tickets should not be used as a revenue source
A Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman said the department was reviewing the deputy’s conduct.
🤮
Good thing they didn’t go to court, she’d probably get tossed into jail for contempt once they try to swear her in.
That reminds me of a George Carlin bit where he’s talking about swearing on the bible in court.
He’s like "What if you use the left hand on the bible, and your right hand in your pocket? What if the bible were upside down? Does god care about our ritualistic exercises? Maybe that’s good enough for god? Or will the court clerk say Sorry, wrong hand, try again? Suppose you don’t have a right hand? Do you swear on the stump at the end of your arm? Or do you use the prostetic? Certainly if your real left hand wasn’t good enough, then surely a wooden right hand would fail the test, right?
And he goes on and on in a way that I don’t feel like typing out. Plus text doesn’t do it justice. It’s on youtube. Just search for George Carlin. And if the one you end up watching isn’t that bit, that’s fine too. All the George Carlin bits are good. Just make an evening out of it. Just watch George Carlin all night long. I promise you he does not give a shit that you’re watching for free. He has a whole bit about shit he doesn’t care about after he’s dead. I won’t spoil it. You have a fun evening ahead of you.
You know what, I think I will go watch some George Carlin. Thank you for the suggestion kind stranger
A lot of what he said was either straight up truth that people found funny, or things people thought were impossible that came to reality.
“It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.” 21 years ago
Why are so many people incapable of admitting that they made a mistake and handling it gracefully? Is this something we can add to the school curriculum as a skill or something?
The way our police system is structured is horrendously broken and encourages this kind of things in its officers, which can only be addressed with a complete overhaul of our approach to public safety, but even with that aside, can we please as a population put more emphasis on being able to handle making mistakes without doubling down?
“Yeah, officer, you wanna walk me through that one more time?”
Cops should be penalized for citations and arrests that are thrown out or dismissed.
Make it mean something to them for when they get it wrong.
There is technically a process to do this, but it takes significant time and resources. Additionally it’s likely you will experience retaliation during the process.
That’ll just encourage them to lie and double down even more.
Sometimes people make mistakes. It’s what they do afterwards that matters. That’s even true for cops.
🐷🐷🐷
Reminds me when a PCSO (UK police community support officer) knocked on my window and told me off for driving while on my phone. I was literally just scratching my ear. Also, I had managed to forget my phone at home when having to visit a clients office and didn’t have time to go back and get it - I was in the car grabbing a quick lunch. I was already annoyed with myself anyway so was livid after that. Told them you shouldn’t go around accusing people of things unless you can actually see it. They just doubled down and walked off without apologising or anything.
US, I almost got a ticket for not wearing my seatbelt because when I saw the cop I mindlessly checked to see if I was wearing it. After that I do that check without moving my hand. Cops are the worst.
^> Device information
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I had heard about this before this article. This is one of those times I wish it was possible to be inside someone else’s head and observe their thoughts and feelings in a moment. I think it would be really fascinating to be inside the officer’s head during this interaction. If it was me, I would have turned and walked away without saying another word and hope that no one ever heard about it.
I always wondered how these guys make it through life.
I understand its a position of authority and an air of confidence is necessary at all times, but gods damned dude
“You had a phone in your right hand”
shows a complete lack of a right hand
“…You sure you don’t have a hand?”
As someone who won’t read the article, as I don’t feel like dealing with NY Times website bullshit, is that how it went down? Or is that satire?
Pretty much exactly like that. The look of confusion on her face when he doubled down was palpable. Like she’s heard of stupid people. She knows they exist, but to encounter this level of stupidity face to face was jarring.
kobra@piefed.social also posted a video of the stop, found here, if that works for you.
Someone posted a link to the bodycam footage and that is how it went down. He even gave her a ticket for it.
He switched to claiming it was her left hand, but she didn’t let him get away with that, since he was 100% confident before, and just kept checking as if he didn’t switch.
Of course, right and left hands are in different places, so the thought of her using her left hand to be on her phone on her right side while simultaneously driving with no hands at all is ridiculous.
I wish it was possible to be inside someone else’s head and observe their thoughts and feelings in a moment
I mean, that cop is crooked to start with. So he’s probably thinking, “Oh shit. My go-to excuse for harassing people failed. It’s embarrassing if I get exposed here, so how can I make this her fault?”
Video of the stop is here: https://youtu.be/47Em_6kCLqI
The reveal is quite hilarious but the cop doubling down is just cringe.
He just didn’t want to admit he was wrong. Fucking ACAB. Goddamn pigs all of them.
He could’ve had a little fun that day and laughed with her and it would’ve been so freaking wholesome. Probably gone viral for that reason instead of due to embarrassment.
I mean, he was following his script. This situation definitely called for some independent thought, but in an unusual situation, he instead just barreled through and stuck to his script…
I’d say there’s definitely more incompetence than malice going on here.
(And to be clear, I’m not saying this is ok.) Incompetence is a huge problem when it’s in a place of ultimate authority, and it carries deadly weapons with the authority to use them. That is absolutely not a position where incompetence should be tolerated in any society.
Weaponized incompetence is malice. They are about power, and it’s a huge display of power to put morons who cannot think for themselves in positions of authority. They know that these people are useful idiots, and they know how much it demoralizes the rest of us.
ACAB isn’t just a slogan, it’s a strategy.
Incompetence isn’t an excuse to be shit person and a worse cop. You convinced me that acab, goddamn pigs, all of them
And you’ll notice that I never said it was an excuse. I mean with your first sentence you’re practically quoting my words, except you took the opposite conclusion.
the cop doubling down
Bro he didn’t just double down, he literally asked her to say “hand to God” to promise him that she didn’t have a phone in her hand.
Like first of all, you’re a cop, imagine you pull a suspect over and you say “I’m suspecting you of this crime. Did you do it?” “No.” “Hand to God?” “Hand to God.” “Alright go on you rascal, have a good day now.”
Second of all, you do not say “Hand to God?” to a person with one fucking hand. Oh my god. 🫣
Wondering if it’s staged or AI or something.
I’m retrospect, we can calmly reflect on the situation and imagine how we’d respond. But in an impromptu “this is happening right now, and I didn’t even fully process that she’s lacking a hand or that I made a mistake” situation, his silly behavior doesn’t seem implausible at all.
Of course it doesn’t seem implausible that a cop would act this way. But any normal person who would accuse someone of something and be met with this kind of conclusive evidence prima facie would probably not do this.
In the heat of the moment.
Really giving that “boys will be boys” energy, are we? There’s no “heat” here, what are you even talking about? As a cop, surely they’ve seen more “heat” than this. Armless lady being the heat, rofl
I’m not justifying their stupid action, just saying that it doesn’t necessarily look scripted to me, because “nobody would act that way”
Why does he keep holding his finger in front of the camera? Is it standard procedure for cops to block their body cams in case they want to do crimes?
“Hand to God, do you swear you didn’t have a phone in your hand?”
“Hand to God.”
“Your other hand. Hand to God, do you swear you didn’t have a phone in your hand?”
“Hand to God.”
“Cool. Have a good day.”
WHAT AN ASSHOLE!
Couldn’t think of what else to say, guy was obviously stumped.
He just didn’t want to hand it to her
How are you allowed to drive if you have just one hand? Don’t you need both hands to steer properly? Or does she have a special steering wheel like in formula cars that rotate just 90 degrees in each direction, so that you never need to switch hands?
My husband has cerebral palsy and so one working hand to steer with. As others have said, he used the ‘suicide knob’ to drive, except it was like. Installed professionally and he legally had to have it installed to drive. I’m unsure if there’s other ways, but that’s how it was done here.
It’s possible to drive without legs. It’s easy to drive with one hand. I’d wager it could be done with more skill than many drivers exhibit with only one limb.
I don’t know how she did it, but the solution I’ve seen was to attach a spinner knob to the wheel. Cheap and easy to do. And gives mobility to somebody who otherwise wouldn’t have it
Right, that’s a good point
It’s perfectly possible to drive 1 handed without any special setup. I do it regularly. You just need an automatic (non manual) shift.
Clutch knee to steering wheel. You just can’t steer and shift at the same time. At least not until you figure out clurchless shifting
“suicide knob” is a classic device I’ve seen before. They were popular in the 60s or so. Named as such because they had a knack for snapping off. It’s still in use for people with various disabilities. However, it’s not especially hard to steer with one hand. I probably went 4 years after the driving test using only one hand with a palm spin. But then I got a car with a slightly slicker, heavier steering wheel and it didn’t work so well.
I had a good friend who’s dad had no arms, and he had his driver’s license and was an excellent driver
Don’t you need both hands to steer properly?
Do you drive? I basically use only my left hand while driving. And my car is an automatic EV, so I don’t have to shift. Also I’m right handed.
I dunno. It’s just comfortable. It might be a remnant from when I used to drive manual shift, when I had to shift gears often, driving in the city. You definitely don’t need two hands to steer, though. And her stump could definitely do shifting no problem.
Ms. Thomas was scheduled to appear in court on Wednesday, but the Palm Beach County deputy who had conducted the stop requested the citation be dismissed, according to court records.
So in other words, after being confronted about his obvious mistake, he still went on to take her to court over it?
US in a nutshell
I think once they make a citation, they can’t just instantly undo, because that could be a sign of bribing your way out of a ticket, so the next opportunity to reverse course on that is at court.
Can any cops or lawyers confirm? I’m definitely not an expert.
I saw the bodycam footage of this. The cop says “I saw you holding a phone in your right hand.” She holds the arm up, showing the stump, smiles and says, “you wanna just call it?” And he just digs deeper; “no I don’t want to call it, I saw you doing uhm…” blablabla excuses excuses citation.
Fucking ego on cops. Could’ve just said, “hah, clearly my mistake” I stead of power tripping and ending up all over the internet. Although bet it won’t affect his police career any.
