The dos and don'ts of police car stops

IT WOULDN'T TAKE you more than a few seconds on the Internet to find a police controversy that began with one of the most common occurrences in law enforcement: a car stop.

Police officials, legal experts and countless social media users all study the dashboard camera videos and smartphone recordings that often accompany these stories.

A clear video with decent audio can help a viewer to separate fact from fiction and understand how and why some encounters take a turn for the worse.

Given the prevalence of recent headlines about car stops that ended in tragedy - in Philly and elsewhere - the Daily News spoke with the Philadelphia Police Department and civil-rights and criminal-defense attorney David Rudovsky about what cops and motorists are legally allowed to say and do during a stop.

"Police are allowed to make a stop for a traffic violation, and they're allowed to require you to turn over you driver's license, registration and so on," Rudovsky said.

A driver is entitled to ask why he has been pulled over.

"There are a million and one reasons in the [state] vehicle code why you can stop someone," said police spokesman Lt. John Stanford. "There's nothing wrong with people asking why they were stopped, and we have to identify the reason."

Beyond that opening exchange, both Stanford and Rudovsky said, an officer can ask a driver to get out of his or her car if a concern arises.

"If they think in their discretion that it's safer for you to be out of the car, they can order you out of the car," Rudovsky said.

An officer "can ask for your permission to search the car, but people are free to say no. Absent some probable cause or a warrant, they can't search it."

Drivers can ask that an officer's supervisor be called to the scene if they're worried about how the situation is unfolding.

Much of this might sound obvious, but seemingly harmless stops can turn contentious if cops and motorists start to argue about the basics.

And let's face it - both cops and drivers tense up as soon as a car stop begins.

"Look, I've done a lot of traffic stops in my career. Nobody likes to get stopped by the police," said Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey.

Stanford noted that officers usually don't know anything about the driver who is behind the wheel as they're approaching. Maybe it's just a woman who slid through a red light. Or maybe it's a guy who has an outstanding arrest warrant and a loaded gun in the glove compartment.

Sandra Bland, 28, was pulled over on July 10 by Texas state trooper Brian Encinia for a minor infraction - failing to signal while changing lanes in Prairie View, Texas.

When Bland expressed her frustration about being pulled over, Encinia asked her to put out her cigarette, according to footage from the dashboard camera in his police cruiser.

Bland refused - smoking a cigarette in her own car, after all, wasn't against the law - and Encinia ordered her out of the car. An argument ensued, with Encinia threatening to "light up" Bland with a stun gun.

The Chicago native was arrested, and found dead several days later in her prison cell. A medical examiner ruled that Bland committed suicide, but her family has disputed the ruling.

"I wasn't there, but based on what I observed in the video, it should have never gotten to that point," Stanford said of Bland's arrest.

"If you're going to give her a warning, give her a warning. If you change your mind, write the ticket," he said. "Everybody in this world has ego. That was her ego, arguing with the cop, and the cop's ego, saying, 'I'm the authority here.' "

Ramsey echoed that point when asked about the case of Ray Tensing, a former University of Cincinnati police officer who was indicted for fatally shooting Samuel Dubose on July 19.

The incident began when Tensing stopped Dubose for driving without a front license plate. It escalated when Dubose refused to get out of his car.

"I've seen the video, and there's nothing in there that justifies the use of deadly force," Ramsey said. "If you pull someone over for a traffic violation, just write the friggin' ticket."

But sometimes it's not that easy. Sometimes cops will encounter motorists who simply want to argue for the sake of arguing.

In the spring, a local man named Tony Soto posted a controversial video online of his exchange with cops in Northeast Philadelphia's 15th District who had pulled him over for driving with tinted windows.

Soto showed the officers paperwork that he said proved he was allowed to have the tinted windows. But police officials claimed he was also trying to bait the patrol cops into a more serious confrontation by peppering them with lines like, "I can tell you whatever I want, because you're a public servant and you work for me."

Subsequent news stories focused on the fact that Soto had been previously convicted of straw-purchasing firearms, fleeing police and impersonating a public servant.

"We have to be respectful in our interactions with people, but it cuts both ways," Stanford said. "I think that same amount of respect has to be displayed on the other side, too."