As I've posted before, thank God for video…
This is yet another of these posts which is probably going to irritate Paw Paw, and I realize cops put up with a lot of shit, but I don't think he will try to find justification for this, because there is none.
The police officer bully in this video is Saratoga County (NY) Deputy Shawn Glans. Deputy Glans had no idea he was being recorded when he slapped a man in order to intimidate him into conceding to a warrantless search of his car.
Why did he assault the driver, identified as Colin Fitch? Because he saw a .22 caliber rifle in the back seat of his car.
No reason was given to suspect that the rifle, purchased by Fitch earlier in the day, was illegally owned or in violation of any of the multitude infringements on the Second Amendment by New York. That wasn’t going to Stop Deputy Glans from harassing a gun owner and joking about it. He said Fitch and his friend were wearing dark clothes and “acting suspiciously” in a feeble attempt to justify his actions.
The exchange on the video unfolds as follows:
Deputy Glans: We’ll get a f*cking search warrant, you want us to do that?
Fitch: I mean if that’s the route you want to take, but there’s no reason you have to search my car. There’s just no need for it.
Deputy Glans (to his partner): Okay, lets get a serach warrant.
Fitch: I wasn’t in my car when all this was happening. Like, why don’t you want to search, like, my house or something
Deputy Glans: Let me see your f*cking keys!
Fitch: Why?
Deputy Glans: Because we’re going to search your f*cking car, that’s why
Fitch: You can’t do that
Deputy Glans: Do you want to resist?
Fitch: I’m not resisting
That’s when the Deputy slaps Fitch while saying “you want to f*cking resist?”. He then took the car keys and threw them to his partner, telling him to search the car.
When Adam Roberts, the passenger in the car who was surreptitiously filming the entire incident, told the deputy “that was intense”, Glans responded by saying, “you like that huh? I can get a lot more intense.”
Roberts asked if he was going to slap him around and the deputy had a few more choice words:
“I’ll rip your head off and sh*t down your neck”
UPDATE: The Saratoga County Sheriff’s Office has made a press release announcing that Deputy Glans has been “suspended without pay effective immediately pending the outcome of the investigation and possible disciplinary action”.
No Excuse For That
