Can You Please Pull Over, Before I Have to Break Your Window?

Interesting account from the blog of J.D. Tuccille of a Senegalese-born citizen terrorized on a dark Arizona road–by a police officer.

Following advice on the website of at least one Arizona police department, she was trying to get to a more populated area before pulling over at the implied order of the flashing lights behind her.

Not good enough.

…..well before the populated area, Sheriff's Sergeant Jeff Neunum apparently tired of waiting for Roberts to reach a settled area. While he was, in fact, a police officer, he now proceeded to justify every fear an American may have about rogue cops. He raced his cruiser in front of Roberts's car, forcing her off the road. He then smashed her driver's-side window with his baton and grabbed a cellphone she was using to check his identity. Accounts vary at this point. While police deny it, the press has reported that Neunum dragged Roberts from her vehicle, threw her to the ground, and handcuffed her while driving his knee into her back.

All of this because she was going 15 miles over the speed limit on a deserted rural road.

Roberts's treatment has been, unsurprisingly, controversial in Arizona's Verde Valley. In a sparsely settled area not known for protests of any kind, 30 supporters showed up at her December 31, 2007 scheduling conference in Judge Janis Sterling's courtroom in Prescott, the county seat.