Is There Some Kind of Cop Contest Going On That We Don’t Know About?
Victoria, Texas, is right down the road from me. I have a lot of friends in Victoria, Texas.
Even some old ones.
Pete Vasquez is 76 years old and was pulled over by 23 year old Officer Nathaniel Robinson for having an expired inspection sticker on his car.
Vasquez explained to Officer Robinson that this was a work-owned vehicle that belonged to a car lot. In Texas, dealer tags make you exempt from inspection stickers. It’s the law.
Vasquez violated no laws, and for that he got slammed on the hood of a car, thrown on the cement ground, tasered twice, and cuffed. He was placed in the back of a patrol car and kept in police custody for two hours.
“He just acted like a pit bull, and that was it,” Vasquez recalled. “For a while, I thought he was going to pull his gun and shoot me.”
Even witnesses to the event were threatened.
Larry Urich, who works as a sales manager at the car lot, told the Advocate that the officer should be both fired from the force and prosecuted for assault.
“I told the officer, ‘What in the hell are you doing?’ This gentleman is 76 years old,” Urich said. “The cop told me to stand back, but I didn’t shut up. I told him he was a goddamned Nazi Stormtrooper.”
Vasquez is lucky to be alive. Officer Nathaniel Robinson has been placed on “administrative leave.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVNwPD7CPR8
Somebody needs their butt kicked.
Thanks to Laura and Frank for the heads up.
Apparently “his training took over” and he got most of it from “reality” TV. Someone needs to start being honest w these guys: the reality is that routine police work is very boring, and you are not allowed to spice it up by abusing the general public, even if you disapprove of their race, creed, sex, or color – or because you feel threatened! That witness had the description about right!
1That cop had to be on something to get that aggressive with a senior citizen over a sticker! That’s why people ore outraged over police brutality. Thank god he didn’t kill the poor guy.
2Let;s see what the grand jury has to say about that.
Expired inspection is not a probable cause for stop. For it to be a legit stop there had to be another violation, like illegal turn, speeding or whatever. For the officer to see hs inspection sticker expired he would have to 1. have some of that Steve Austin (Bionic Man) vision that let him zoom into the sticker, 2. Had to be able to read backwards since he would see it from the rear. Or maybe he is the offspring of Ms. Cleo the knows all sees all fortune teller…
3Years ago when my daughter was getting up to speed on a textbook case of ADHD, she instructed me that my toddler grandson stood a pretty good chance of being either the cop or the robber.
Who the hell is hiring these guys with no impulse control, not training them and then turning them out on the street?
4That is disgusting.
5When we read about people gunned down by police officers, and the family/friends/neighbors all say the dead person was decent and non-violent, remember this event. If there had been no witnesses, this psycho-cop could have told a grand fiction about this mean old man. There ARE tests that can be used to weed out psychotic officer candidates: the police chiefs don’t use them enough.
6Maybe while this “shouldn’t be allowed to be in law enforcement of any kind….. cop” is on administrative leave, somebody can “school” him on the laws he should and can enforce.
What I’m thinking when I read about all of these white law enforcement officers, and people being shot…. tasered, thrown to the ground, abused, women raped…. is that a lot of guys who served in the Bush/Cheney wars against people with “other than white skin” … and came home with a lot of mental problems, TBI, PTSD, etc., … (because they are ex-military). and already have combat experience with all of the above, are…. being hired by our local police departments…. JMHO.
7Training, shmaining! This cop was just wound way too tight and his admin leave should be greatly extended until he has been found to have mellowed out. If not, early retirement would not be a bad thing for everyone.
8Is there something in modern police training that removes common sense?
9Looooong administrative leave. Without weapons. In a locked cell maybe?
10If this had been an 18-yr-old black employee taking the car to pick up parts, does anyone think the cop might have just shot instead of tasered him?
This cop needs a different job. Very different.
1120 years ago the same thing was happening, the stories just show up quicker to a greater mass of people.
12@Maggie, that was a snark against reality TV in which (for a time) whatever “hero” du jour was being extolled would say “…and then my training took over” in a very aw-shucks-it-were-nuthin sort of fashion. I’m pretty sure Victoria put Mr Robinson into a uniform, armed him, and changed his title to Officer with little or no training whatsoever. That’s what subsequent events suggest, at least!
13@ Frank, yeah, we can’t ask Joe Campos Torres or Randall Webster about their experiences, can we? See also: HPD archives, 1970-present.
14Imagine the applicants for jobs that do not pay very much, but, once hired, a new employee gets to wear a uniform and strap a pistol to his side. I am sure most police officers chose that occupation because they want to serve. Then there are the other applicants. The obvious solution, raise both the pay and the standards, costs more than many smaller towns either can afford or are willing to spend.
15So what good are body cameras going to do? This cop didn’t care that it was caught on his dash cam.
16I saw this on HuffPost early this morning and emailed several Victoria Police officials about what I thought. I included the mayor in my emails.
My email:
“1. Place Robinson on UNPAID leave immediately.
2. Charge him with official oppression, injury to elderly, aggravated assault and assault. Do NOT allow a plea bargain. He seems to be a psychopath with a badge. This deserves the maximum jail time and maximum fine. Fire Robinson. We do not need more criminal cops injuring or killing citizens. Texas has too many of those already.
I got an auto-response from the mayor’s email address:
“Thank you for sharing your opinion with me.”
I’m sure that it won’t concern him any further unless there is a very large cash payment from the citizens of Victoria to Mr. Vasquez.
17There may be tests that can be used to weed out psychotic officer candidates. They should use them in conjunction with a steroid test.
18In San Antonio we have a campus cop shooting and killing a student off campus and SAPD did nothing.
19My guess is the results of the latest election mean it is open season on minorities.Didn’t wingnuts convince you that all are problems are caused by minorities,including the one in the White House? Didn’t we hear a daily bombardment from rwnj about illegals taking over? Hasn’t the latest round of grand jury decisions convinced you yet?
20Another psycho who thinks that a gun and a badge means he’s allowed to do anything he wants to anybody, especially if they don’t look and act exactly like him.
There are ugly nasty buggers in every profession from doctor to teacher to priest, but they sure seem to be attracted to the police forces.
This jackwagon should be fired, and then he’ll probably be in the news later for shooting up someplace because “you’re all out to get me!”
21Nate @ #3, I was once pulled over for an expired sticker. The stickers are different colors for each year, so it was visible, though my initial impression was that I was being dangerously tailgated– couldn’t see it was a cop trying to get as close as possible to the bumper. It was actually my friend’s car– she was next to me, had asked me to drive because she didn’t like the beltway traffic– but I got the ticket, which she reimbursed me for.
22Bob Cesca just had a long piece about cops on steroids at The Daily Banter. He writes that steroids often cause rage and uncontrollable, sometimes violent behavior. Methinks perhaps young Robinson might have just visited his local candy shop and stocked up on some of those bad boys. He certainly wouldn’t be the first cop to do so, according to Cesca.
23Boy oh boy did this step on one of my buttons!
The “safety inspection sticker” is actually a state emissions test in Dallas, Harris, and other counties with dirty air. It quit being a inspection of motor vehicles to enhance public safety years ago, when headlight aim, windshield wipers and other things quit being inspect-able. In March, 2015 that all changes. You cant renew your registration without a passed emissions test. At least that is so in Dallas County.
Now on the more important issue of why this person was hired and retained as a peace officer. From this tiny bit I read he probably should have been hired and his FTO should not have allowed him alone in a car. But this incident seems to be part of a larger theme where police have an Us v. Them mentality with respect to their day to day contacts.
Certainly militarizing the police – the book camp haircuts and
SWAT involved in arrests that are in no way dangerous and military surplus vehicles snapped up by local PDs. Almost as if cool appearance had trumped content.
And yes to Aggieland Liz: an 11-7 shift is typically 20 to 30 minutes of not very palatable food at the only restaurant in town open at 3am, 7 hours 59 minutes of boredom with 60 seconds of abject terror.
24Police work is most attractive to the exact sort of person who should never be allowed to do it. The more violence and fewer indictments the more attractive it becomes. Vicious cycle we’re in ain’t it?
25Police work is most attractive to the exact sort of person who should never be allowed to do it. The more violence and fewer indictments the more attractive it becomes. Vicious cycle we’re in ain’t it?
26I hate it when I cant type…
27“he probably should NOT have been hired and his FTO should NOT”
The story has been reported in the Washington Post and the (British) Guardian; the Post includes the video:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/12/15/texas-cop-uses-a-stun-gun-on-a-76-year-old-driver-he-pulled-over-for-a-non-existent-inspection-violation/?tid=hpModule_9d3add6c-8a79-11e2-98d9-3012c1cd8d1e&hpid=z14
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/15/texas-police-stun-gun-76-year-old
28Juanita, Juanita (doing a Barney Fife on the phone from the sheriffs office to the diner impression). Been following you for a while but never commented. Now I’ve started my own blog. Please give me your impression of my first post (the red part at the end of the article). I promise I’ll take you to Mount Pilot for the dance this Saturday 🙂
http://raysragepage072.blogspot.com/
Ray Page
29Yesterday I took a leisurely drive through a neighboring community that, in my experience, seems to derive a fair amount of it’s fiscal stability through enforcement of the local traffic laws. Which leads me to wonder if part of this backstory isn’t derived from quotas for fiscal enrichment for the officer-in-question’s employer. In other words, you get what you pay for: enforcers aggressively shaking down the money tree in order to keep their year end bonus…
No wonder the higher ups don’t crack down on this nonsense.
30This won’t stop until citizens start shooting cops in self-defense and then banding together and confronting any other “police” that show up. Cameras do not lie – and this “cop” should be in jail. Everyone knows it. If that elderly man were my grandfather this “cop” would get a quick lesson in what others are willing to do to protect the ones they love.
31In the 60s they were known as pigs still stands today.
32