After an almost three-month investigation, Rohnert Park officials determined the cop who pulled a gun on a man recording him acted “reasonable” and therefore will not be disciplined.
After all, they said, the cop was doing his due diligence in keeping the neighborhood safe, investigating culprits violating city parking codes, when he came across the man with the camera.
And that, of course, made Rohnert Park police officer Dave Rodriguez fear for his life.
According to the just released statement from the Northern California city:
The Officer was in the neighborhood in response to complaints that someone in the neighborhood was violating City parking codes. While checking registration on cars he noticed a man standing on the sidewalk by a truck. The officer saw the resident quickly duck behind the truck after his patrol car came into view.
The officer considered this suspicious behavior, and decided to investigate further. After the Officer got out of his patrol car, he also noticed other unusual behavior, including the resident’s agitated demeanor and his initial refusal to comply with the officer’s instruction to remove his hand from his pocket, which had a bulge in it.
The video does not show Don McComas duck behind any vehicle but facts mean nothing when police investigate themselves, even if they do so under the pretense of hiring a “third-party investigator” consisting of former internal affairs investigators as they did in this case.
In fact, the video shows McComas standing in front of his home, narrating for viewers how the cop is cruising slowly through his neighborhood when Rodriguez parks his car in the middle of the street, steps out and pulls his gun out, ordering him to take his hand out of his pocket.
As McComas tells him to put his gun away, you can see one hand lay a phone on his car while the other hand is holding his camera, so unless he has a third hand, all hands were out of his pocket.
Not that the cop was legally justified in ordering him to pull his hands out of his pocket in the first place.
It wasn’t like this was one of those “high-crime” areas where the courts have suspended the Constitution.
No, this was one of those high-end neighborhoods where cops have nothing better to do than drive around looking for parking violations.
And when they’re not doing that, they’re busy raiding people’s homes for criticizing them online.
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