Don't Do As We Say

August 18, 2008

As Vanessa Kimery was driving down the road one night, she saw flashing lights in her rear view mirror. She put on her emergency lights and drove another half mile until she pulled into the parking lot of a convenience store. She says she wasn't sure if it was actually a police officer, so she wanted to make sure she was in a lighted, public place before stopping. That turns out to have been a bad idea. When she failed to stop, the Green County, Kentucky, deputy who was trying to stop her called for backup. When she did stop, deputies pulled her out of her car at gunpoint, handcuffed her, searched her car, and cited her for speeding—the original offense—and failing to yield. After viewing the dashboard video of the arrest, Greene County Sheriff Jack Merritt threw out the failing to yield charge, but he insists deputies acted properly.