Last month, a traffic arrest turned nasty when the driver launched a racial tirade at a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy.
The woman called the deputy a “murderer” and along with other derrogetory terms after he pulled her over for using her cellphone while driving on April 23 in San Dimas, as captured on the deputy’s personal body camera.
She can be heard telling the deputy that he'd never be White,
Since Fox News reporter Bill Melugin posted an edited version of the video to Twitter on Monday, it has been viewed over 5.6 million times.
According to sheriff’s officials, the woman later filed a personnel complaint against the deputy for “discourtesy,” and the incident is being investigated.
Sheriff Alex Villanueva praised the deputy’s demeanor, calling it an illustration of “professionalism and patience.”
The woman in the video identified herself as a teacher and said that she had left her driver’s license at home. She denied using her phone while driving, claiming she was recording the deputy because he was frightening her.
The woman’s identity has not been revealed. She may have been a former employee of Los Angeles Southwest College, according to the college’s Twitter account. She last worked at the college in 2017.
She has made at least one previous lawsuit against the agency, according to sheriff’s officials.
While it is illegal to drive with your phone in your hand in California, some legal experts believe the woman’s defense — that she was filming the deputy — is legal gray.
He believes the woman, whose race is unclear in the video, responded negatively to the deputy as a result of well-publicized “fraught interactions” with law enforcement, including those involving traffic stops that turned violent.
He added, however, that she lost credibility when she became personal.
Armour said of her conduct, “It assumes you know what the motivations of this particular [deputy] are.” “It’s a pity,” says the narrator.
According to John Myers, a visiting professor of law at U.C. Hastings, the woman made a “racist verbal attack” that could be classified as a hate incident, which is described as an act of violence motivated by characteristics such as ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation that does not rise to the level of a crime.
According to spokeswoman Trina Schrader, the body camera belonged to the officer and was not sheriff’s department equipment.
The department is in the process of distributing body cameras to all deputies after years of delay. The rollout, according to Schrader, is an “extensive process” that will take time. She said the cameras will be sent to the station where the deputy works this summer.
Personal cameras or audio recorders are used by certain officers who do not have official body cameras to capture public encounters and defend themselves from false claims.
According to Schrader, law enforcement officers face public animosity on a regular basis.