The Florida Trooper busted watching YouTube videos of cars racing while driving, was exposed on Facebook by a Lee County resident and military veteran, who gave a priceless interview to his local news outlet, which you can see below.
“It blew my mind.”
No further comment by James Peebles to his local NBC affiliate could describe the situation, but he managed to capture it in a photo which vent viral on Facebook earlier this week.
The photo depicts a Florida Highway Patrol trooper driving with their tinted windows rolled up and YouTube playing.
“Everybody’s human though,” said Florida man Peebles who resides in Lee County, “so I do know that we all make mistakes.”
By the numbers, America’s second leading cause of police officer deaths in 2015 is car accidents, and so far in 2016 that holds the same too.
Or is this a new case of the “YouTube Effect” America’s top law enforcement brass incessantly spoke of last year?
FBI Director James Comey said, ““Has policing changed in the YouTube era? I don’t like the term ‘post-Ferguson,’ because I actually believe the ‘YouTube era’ captures it better.”
And NYPD’s constantly embattled NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton, “called it the “YouTube effect” that has emerged for officers post-Ferguson and, in New York, after the death of Eric Garner last year after he was put in a chokehold by an officer making an arrest.”
Florida Trooper Endangered His Life and Others With Bad Driving, While Presumably Policing Floridians Notoriously Bad Driving
“He was watching cars racing is what he was watching,” said the veteran Peebles, his eyes rolling, while stifling open laughter.
We really cannot make this stuff up.
And it’s sad.
Because bad habits in a service branch like the Florida Highway Patrol – which is tasked with highway safety and considered to be held to higher standards than local and county authorities in this populous state – may mean a person is ill suited to working primarily while driving in a patrol vehicle.
The CDC says that in 2013, Americans suffered 424,000 injuries due to distracted driving.
Numerous deaths happen too.
It causes nearly one in five accidents.
Forgetting others on the road, even a one-car accident can be fatal, and police spend a lot of time driving while on the job.
Police have lost their lives tragically, responding to calls, in one-car accidents on duty, and while off-duty too.
Or like this unlucky rookie deputy who lost his life in Marlboro County, South Carolina in his first week on the job to a one-car wreck in his SUV on a rainy night.
Or this 25-year veteran Texas cop who lost his life on the road in a one vehicle accident.
Perhaps, if other officers see this story on YouTube and through social media outlets, they’ll learn not to repeat its mistakes.
If so, then the “YouTube Effect” will have done its job protecting officers lives and the public interest in their wellbeing on-duty.
See the rest of the video here…
James Peebles Facebook post busting a Florida Highway Patrol officer watching YouTube videos while driving in Lee County.
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