Marco and Dillon Puente, a father and son, say that living in the city of Keller, Texas, often means looking over their shoulder.
As Hispanic men in Keller, which is about 30 miles northwest of Dallas and whose population is 87 percent white, Marco Puente said that for him and his son, there’s a sense that “every time you see a cop, it’s: Is this cop going to pull us over? Are they going to target us? Do they know who we are?”
“It’s just this weird feeling that when you’ve done nothing wrong but you don’t want somebody else to be mad,” he said.
That uneasy vigilance came into play on Aug. 15, he said.
That day, as Mr. Puente and his son headed in separate cars to meet at a relative’s house, Mr. Puente, 39, saw his son, Dillon, being pulled over by the police.
k_ironheart on December 27th, 2020 at 17:13 UTC »
And I really hope he wins. The only problem is that the money from the lawsuit should come out of the police department's pension fund because they'll never learn their lesson if they make the taxpayers fund their mistakes.
sephstorm on December 27th, 2020 at 16:33 UTC »
Sounds like something an officer should be fired for, not demoted. Also, since when is a moving violation an arrestable offense? The Chief needs to discuss the entire interaction and whether each action was legal. Pulling him over for an offense is legal. Asking him to get out for a moving violation seems unlikely to be standard procedure. Attempting to arrest someone for filming is not likely legal, depending on circumstances. Then you have the pepper spraying, and the refusal of a towel.
I'd like to know how many inproper things the officer did. If it was as many as I think, demotion alone is probably not sufficient here.
Chimpz333 on December 27th, 2020 at 16:29 UTC »
Demoted with a possibility to reapply after a year. In other words a slap on the wrist. Both should have been fired.