John Felton, a black man, was pulled over in Ohio and filmed the entire incident. The video has gone viral with people commenting about how ridiculous the incident was. Felton posted the caption:
This is why I hate coming to Dayton. #DaytonPolice trailed me for almost 2 miles before pulling me over in front of my mom crib. He had no grounds for following/trailing me other than seeing an Infiniti with Michigan plates. His reason? “I gave him direct eye contact while passing him.” What kind of shit is that? #DaytonPolice this cop needs to be on desk duty. Fake ass white collar thugs eager to meet their quota.
The cop pulled him over for failing to signal 100 feet prior to turn. This upset Felton and understandably so as this a law is fairly at an officer’s discretion. His real outrage came from the fact the cop trailed him for close to two hours only to pull him over in front of his mother’s home.
The officer is never seen on camera so his identity remains secret. The only thing that can be seen is an arm and shows he is white. Felton tells the cop, ‘Sir, you trailed me for how long? You just needed a reason to pull me over. Like, no disrespect, I don’t have nothing against police officers, but all the shit that’s going on right now, that’s some scary shit.’
The words may have gotten to the officer who let Felton and his brother who was riding passenger off with no citation. But, they needed an answer to why they were even being followed to which the cop said, ‘Because you made direct eye contact with me and held onto it when I was passing you… I’m not going to argue about it anymore.’
A mere gaze at him was enough to upset the officer and thus continue to follow John and his brother waiting for a moment to open so he could pull them over. Dayton police are currently reviewing the video and made a statement saying, ‘…making direct eye contact with an officer is not a basis for a traffic stop.’ Most citizens know that, which is what caused the video to go viral displaying an abuse of power in law enforcement.
Felton and his brother are heard saying they knew they were going to be pulled over. He told ABC 22/Fox 45, ‘I got a nice car. I don’t know if he seen I was a black male. I feel like I was targeted, the Michigan car and it was about 11 o’clock at night.’
Cops do not have to physically violate a person for it to be mistreatment. These tactics are somewhat well-known by drivers, especially people of color. Abuse of power can come in many forms and this video shows exemplifies needless run ins with the law.
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