Dash Cam Catches Bad Cop Falsely Arresting Veteran

[Music] welcome to audit the audit where we sort out the who and what and the right and wrong of police interactions this episode covers disorderly conduct self-incrimination and reckless driving and is brought to us by lackluster's channel be sure to check out the description below and give them the credit that they deserve on may 10 2019 disabled veteran charles donner and his wife brittany were driving behind arkansas state police trooper ryan wingo in hot springs arkansas when trooper wingo made a sudden u-turn to attempt to pursue a vehicle traveling the opposite direction that was allegedly speeding mr donner honked his horn at trooper wingo and trooper wingo responded by making a full 360 degree turn passing another vehicle and pulling behind mr donner with his lights flashing when mr donner pulled to the right side of the road and stopped his vehicle trooper wingo crashed into him with his cruiser pull into the parking lot pull it to the parking lot 60 knot springs go and send one of the normal units over here to the uh shoot factory i had a car slam on right in front of me registration insurance because you're following me too closely i nearly ran to me no i did not you slammed on your brakes you had no brake you had no turn signal or nothing i turned around on the car without speeding i'm doing my job out here sir give me your life you hit me don't worry don't worry i'll see you what's going on look at my car all right take a seat in the car right now we're on traffic stop right now okay you hit my [ __ ] car wrong trap yourself out here i want to see the damage done to my give me a minute we're on a traffic stop right now once i get done with my traffic stop for falling too closely i was not falling too close clearly you where you hit me you stopped the middle of a roadway sir no i didn't stop i got over and i was i was in the lane and you hit us okay so okay well i'm so i told you i stopped you because you're following me too closely but i wasn't there okay okay do you have an idea on you ma'am i sure do you don't need your id yes i do actually for the accident report that you so f that you still want sir yes i do want it okay there's no damage between our vehicles though i don't give a [ __ ] bro trooper wingo rips open mr donner's door orders him to exit the vehicle and places him under arrest for disorderly conduct arkansas's disorderly conduct law which is found in section 5-71-207 of the arkansas code states that quote a person commits the offensive disorderly conduct if with the purpose to cause public inconvenience annoyance or alarm or recklessly creating a risk of public inconvenience annoyance or alarm he or she engages in fighting or in violent threatening or tumultuous behavior makes unreasonable or excessive noise in a public place uses abusive or obscene language or makes an obscene gesture in a manner likely to provoke a violent or disorderly response not only was mr donner's conduct not likely to cause a public disturbance as he was only speaking to trooper wingo but as we've discussed before on ata profanity is protected speech under the first amendment and citizens cannot be arrested for simply using curse words for instance in the 2000 case of nichols versus chicone the west district of arkansas determined that a police officer violated the first and fourth amendments when he arrested an individual under this same disorderly conduct statute for giving him the middle finger the court concluded that although the gesture was inarticulate and crude quote it represented an expression of disapproval toward a police officer with whom he had just had a run in as such it fell squarely within the protective umbrella of the first amendment and any action to punish or deter such speech such as stopping or hassling the speaker is categorically prohibited by the constitution in reaching this decision the court reviewed a long line of supreme court decisions on the issue including the 1987 case of houston versus hill in this case the court held that quote the first amendment protects a significant amount of verbal criticism and challenge directed to police officers speech is often provocative and challenging but it is nevertheless protected against censorship or punishment unless shown likely to produce a clear and present danger of a serious substantive evil that rises far above public inconvenience annoyance or unrest the court also noted that quote the freedom of individuals verbally to oppose or challenge police action without thereby risking arrest is one of the principal characteristics by which we distinguish a free nation from a police state given the well-established legal precedent protecting the right to use profanity and expressed disapproval of police officers a court would almost certainly conclude that trooper wingo's actions violated mr donner's constitutional rights if you're under arrest we'll do something with the conduct sir come on take a seat until you can calm down okay why are you doing this ma'am there was no need for cussing me out until he can calm down and act like an adult he's gonna sit in the back of the okay until he can calm down and act like a human being and stop cussing me out for no reason so i'm trying to explain to him what happened but he doesn't want to let me talk okay so do you want to let me talk or not yes i'm sorry okay now you're going to calm down you're going to continue cussing i just want your badge number in your name you're going to i'm asking you a simple question so you're going to actually i just want your badge number in your name it's all i want okay well i'm trying to ask you and i said share officer okay well you can continue to cuss me out or not because that was that and you're going to say sure then i'm not going to have you sit out here and choose anything there's no fit to you're not incriminating yourself sir here trooper wingo tells mr donner that he doesn't need to invoke his right to silence because he's not being asked incriminating questions however the fifth amendment applies to a much broader range of interrogation than blatantly incriminating questions an individual should exercise their right to remain silent in a variety of situations in the 1951 case of hoffman versus united states the supreme court held that the right against self-incrimination quote not only extends to answers that would in themselves support a conviction but likewise embraces those which would furnish a link in the chain of evidence needed to prosecute the claimant the court also determined that citizens cannot be compelled to answer questions when they have reasonable cause to fear consequences from answering the question or when it is quote evident from the implications of the question in the setting in which it is asked that a responsive answer to the question or an explanation of why it cannot be answered might be dangerous because injurious disclosure could result similarly in the 2001 case of ohio vs reiner the supreme court determined that both innocent and guilty individuals have the right to remain silent during police interrogation because quote truthful responses of an innocent witness as well as those of a wrong doer may provide the government with incriminating evidence from the speaker's own mouth and that it is reasonable for an individual to fear that answering police questions might incriminate them in this situation answering even a seemingly innocuous question such as are you going to calm down now could have caused mr donner to unintentionally implicate himself for instance if mr donner had agreed to calm down and stop cussing out trooper wingo it could have insinuated that his conduct was unreasonable before he was handcuffed that he believed that his detention was justified this is one of the many reasons that citizens should invoke their right to remain silent when police officers attempt to question them as when an individual answers a question inexactly or incorrectly it can be used to incriminate them even when they are innocent i just want your badge number i just want your badge number in your name okay that's all i want okay this is gonna end horribly i just want him i'm trying to get him to calm down but he doesn't want to he wants to continue yelling for no reason okay he said yes give me your ptsd i don't know if he has malicious content he's over here yelling and cussing me now i'm just trying to get his information and he don't start yelling and stopping me on the road for no reason i understand he wasn't freaking out because you hit her that's why he was upset with because you hit us driving back he started cussing me out but everything's good to go yeah he just wants to get on custody for no reason so i got him yeah okay i was coming this way it was i saw him riding my butt i didn't really care talk to him i'm on overtime turned around turned around he slept hit um [Music] he moved straight over from the inside lane to the outside lane goes straight over and just slams on the brakes and i'm just trying to get behind him and he slams on his brake and i didn't even have my life on at that point but he just stopped in the middle of the road trooper wingo recounts his version of events to a fellow trooper who responded to the scene which is wildly different from what the dash and cab cam show actually occurred first trooper wingo claims that mr donner was following him too closely but the cab footage shows that mr donner left plenty of distance between the two vehicles while trooper wingo was driving in front of him trooper wingo also alleges that he had not activated his emergency lights when mr donner stopped his vehicle but the capcam also shows that he did in fact turn on his emergency lights before the collision occurred finally trooper wingo insists that mr donner stopped in the middle of the road when mr donner had clearly pulled into the right lane to yield to the police vehicle what the video footage also shows is that trooper wingo started to make a u-turn without first getting into the middle turning lane then when mr donner honked his horn at him trooper wingo turned back around to pull over mr donner and ultimately slammed into mr donner's vehicle when he stopped although arkansas law does allow police vehicles to disregard traffic laws in some circumstances they are generally required to follow the same rules of the road as everyone else for example section 27-51-202 of the arkansas code establishes that certain speed limit laws quote do not apply to authorized emergency vehicles responding to emergency calls when the driver of the emergency vehicle is operating the vehicle's emergency lights and is also operating an audible signal by bell siren or exhaust whistle if other vehicles are present however the statute also explicitly states that quote this section does not relieve the driver of an authorized emergency vehicle from the duty to drive with due regard for the safety of all persons using the street nor shall it protect the driver of any emergency vehicle from the consequence of a reckless disregard of the safety of others given this evidence the court would probably determine that trooper wingo's erratic driving was not only likely responsible for the accident but it was also illegal [Music] [Music] trooper wingo eventually released mr donner without charging him with disorderly conduct and issued him a citation for following too closely and parking on a highway because of the traumatic experience they had with trooper wingo the donners decided not to fight these charges and paid the 330 fine the couple recently decided to retain an attorney to pursue a civil rights lawsuit against trooper wingo and ms donner has created a gofundme campaign to help cover the cost of attorney fees you can find a link in the description below overall trooper wingo gets an f for causing a crash by recklessly operating his patrol vehicle intentionally misrepresenting the facts of the encounter to justify his actions and for violating mr donner's first and fourth amendment rights by arresting him for his speech not only did trooper wingo exercise poor discretion by choosing to pull over someone who honked at him rather than an individual who was potentially committing an actual violation but he also needlessly violated several traffic laws and caused a low-speed crash in an effort to do so it could certainly be argued that the trooper's actions put more citizens in danger than mr donner would have if he actually had been following the trooper too closely and it would be difficult for anyone much less a court to find trooper wingo's conduct anything but objectively unreasonable trooper wingo failed to take responsibility for his actions arrested a citizen for criticizing his conduct and was unable to control the situation in a peaceful and professional manner this is yet another encounter where an officer attempted to criminalize behavior that their ego could not tolerate rather than making a legitimate effort to de-escalate the situation it seems clear that mr donner has a civil case on his hands and it'll be interesting to see whether he is able to raise the funds to find representation mr donner gets an a for remaining relatively calm and collected throughout the encounter verbally invoking his right to remain silent and for maintaining a reasonable balance between challenging the conduct of the troopers and complying with their commands as discussed earlier profanities are generally protected under the first amendment especially when directed at police officers and nothing that mr donner said constituted a violation of any legitimate statute considering that he was being accused of following trooper wingo too closely immediately after being rear-ended by the trooper mr donner was reacting to the situation in a relatively reasonable manner mr donner also made a point to verbally invoke his right to remain silent and refuse to wave that right despite trooper wingo's insistence that remaining silent was not necessary i commend mr donner for effectively exercising his right to silence and for having the courage to follow up this encounter with legal action a link to mr donner's gofundme will be in the description below if you are interested in helping him retain an attorney and be sure to give lackluster your support you can find a link to his channel in the description as well let us know if there is an interaction or legal topic you would like us to discuss in the comments below thank you for watching and don't forget to check out my second channel for even more police interaction content [Music] you

Channel: Audit the Audit

Views: 6,032,241

Keywords: amagansett press, first amendment audit, 1st amendment audit, auditing america, news now california, sgv news first, high desert community watch, anselmo morales, photography is not a crime, san joaquin valley transparency, first amendment audit fail, walk of shame, news now houston, police fail, 1st amendment audit fail, public photography, auditor arrested, police brutality, highdesert community watch, pinac news, cops triggered, news now patrick, east hampton

Id: jabLqexylbA

Length: 16min 4sec (964 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 13 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/V0latyle]

The trooper in the video, Ryan Wingo, fatally shot a biker in 2017 after the motorcyclist fled an attempted traffic stop - and the shooting was conveniently not on video, so we only have the trooper's word to go on.

Which begs the question:

Why doesn't ASP discourage its officers from engaging in reckless and dangerous high speed chases, especially with bikers involved? It poses a greater risk to the public at that point, but it's not like ASP expresses any particular concern for public safety - Trooper Rodney Dunn flipped a pregnant woman's vehicle with a PIT maneuver only 2 minutes after attempting to initiate the stop.

Is it my imagination or is ASP one of the most reckless LE agencies?

[u/Teresa_Count]

Nasty, gaslighting, egotistical cop. Good on the man for standing up for himself.

[u/[deleted]]

Arkansas only has training requirments of 13 weeks training for state troopers. The shortest of all 50 states for state troopers.

24-26 weeks is the national average for state trooper.

For regular police officers, Arkansas is the only state that has ZERO training requirments.

[u/bowhunter_fta]

There are no two ways about it; this trooper needs to be arrested and charged and fired. He should never be in any position of authority...ever...for any reason...not even a shift leader position at Del Taco.

[u/OhighOent]

Calm down and act like a human being.....

[u/50points4gryffindor]

What a fucking dirtbag this cop is.

[u/horseradishking]

The police reviewed this footage and didn't do anything to Ryan Wingo?

This is incredible.

[u/Alex_ONEX]

Disorderly conduct is literally an open door to arrest anybody for anything, I honestly think that without that charge, police would have their bad behavior restricted by a large margin. Simply because you are eliminating a tool, that they purposely use with bad intentions or to satisfy their egos.

[u/reddn2]

The worst part about this situation is that this guy in question pleads guilty to the charges.