“Everyone rises to their level of incompetence.” – Laurence J. Peter
A little over a month ago on December 14, the Jacksonville, FL, Sheriff’s Department initiated a daytime traffic stop on Jason Arrington, a middle-age black man with no warrants, who was legally carrying a concealed pistol.
Two officers we initially involved in the stop, Deputy Weippert (male) and Deputy Cardwell (female.)
Deputy Weippert approached the passenger’s side of the vehicle and informed Mr. Arrington that he was observed running a red light. Mr. Arrington provided his license and insurance, and was then asked by the officer if he had anything dangerous in his vehicle, to which he replied that he was armed, and it was on his person.
Weippert told Mr. Arrington that for “his safety and officer safety” they were going to have him step out of the vehicle and they were going to take possession of his pistol.
While that interaction transpired, a second unit arrived driven by a Deputy Lowry, who exited his patrol car and approached the scene.
Weippert informed Lowry that Mr. Arrington was armed and had been calm and cooperative, and directed Lowry to approach the drivers door and disarm the driver.
Lowery guided Arrington out and had him place his hands on his head. At this point, Deputy Cardwell approached, lifted Arrington’s shirt and while using her left hand, proceeded to struggle to remove the holstered pistol.
During the brief struggle, she discharged the pistol into Mr. Arrington’s right hip.
Her body cam does not capture the shot, but a split second afterwards you can plainly see her left middle AND ring fingers on the trigger.
Lowry instructs Cardwell to set the pistol down, which see does – on the street, next to Mr. Arrington’s holster, which is now, somehow, on the pavement, as well.
Officer Lowry moves the victim to the easement away from traffic, and then starts to apply a tourniquet (CAT) – it’s exactly 1-min, 30-sec, from shot fired till the last turn of the windless and it’s snapped in place.
Deputy Lowry did a reasonably good job treating the wound. However, it’s doubtful this was an arterial bleed, just from appearances [it certainly may have been bleeding internally.] If it had been, there probably would have been more bleeding and/or a less conscious Mr. Arrington 1:30 into the event.
The department could probably use a little more practice with their trauma kits, but, it’s most certainly a passing grade on the medical side.
On the gun handling side, Officer Cardwell gets an obvious F. She’s since been fired (for what that’s worth.) We can only speculate on how much this incident will end up costing the taxpayers of Jacksonville. I’m also curious if she will end up being hired by another department a year from now. Time will tell.
Also worth noting, approximately 2-minutes after the shot was fired, a passerby on a bicycle rides within a foot the unattended (assume loaded) pistol of Mr. Arrington now laying in the street.
Some might wonder why Deputy Cardwell decided it was necessary to disarm an otherwise peaceable and compliant citizen during a traffic stop in broad daylight for a minor infraction, especially with two other Deputies present on scene.
I’m not a mind reader, so I don’t know what his thought process was – I do know of two factors that generally play into such decisions.
The first is the case law established by the 1977 SCOTUS ruling on Pennsylvania v Mimms. The court ruled officers do NOT violate 4th Amendment rights during a traffic stop if they order the driver and/or other occupants out of a vehicle and pat them down when they reasonably believe the occupant(s) represent a threat to their safety.
When one reads through the decision, it’s obvious the court is saying the officer(s) need to have a legitimate concern for their safety and they can’t just order people out of vehicles on a whim.
However, challenges to officer’s use of Mimms to force people from vehicles for what seem like ridiculous reasons have not been successful, thus far. The police and prosecutors have used Mimms to justify any, and all, demands of people forced to exit vehicles, and courts, generally, rubber stamp it.
What that means for the citizenry is that when were told to get out, like it or not, we have to.
In the case of Mr. Arrington, he informed the officer he was legally carrying [possessed a firearm he could reach. e.g. “potential threat”], and there is no way any court would not side with the officer being within his rights to demand Mr. Arrington exit the vehicle and be disarmed.
Whether it was necessary or not is open to argument – what we need to understand is that under present interpretation of case law, it was a lawful order.
The second motivator for demanding legally armed occupants exit the vehicle is a bit more abstract.
It’s the constant lock-step chant from the academy, police spokespersons, and police organizations that traffic stops are the most dangerous part of any officer’s job and they can be murdered in an instant from the occupants of every vehicle they pull over.
Yes – officers have been murdered by the occupants of vehicles during traffic stops, and it certainly carries with it risk. But it’s not common place, especially considering the number of stops police make in a day nationwide, which is around 50,000. Police aren’t murdered on traffic stops every day, every week, or even every month. It does happen, and I strongly recommend that police go into every stop alert and prepared to act as necessary. However, I recommend that the same way I recommend roofers watch their step and pilots not skip their pre-flight checks. The job has risk, understand it and prep for it the best you can. What I don’t suggest is living in a constant state of paranoia that every traffic stop could be my last because the driver is going to murder me.
On a practical note, officers run a higher risk of being killed by a passing vehicle than they doing being murdered by the occupant(s) of a stopped vehicle. However, there are many police who, when notified of a legally possessed firearm being present, will immediately go into “officer safety” mode and demand the driver exit to be disarmed. This is not because they sense something “off” about the driver, it’s because they’ve been – for lack of a better term – “programed” to view all guns as a direct threat to their safety.
We have to understand that there is nothing we can legally do to stop them from doing so.
That being said, unnecessary gun handling invariably leads to Unintentional Discharges (UD’s.) And I would not expect excellence in gun handling from any random officer. I know many officers who are well-trained, competent gun handlers – the problem is, they are also the officers who are far less prone to disarm those legally carrying handguns during traffic stops.
If an officer wants a peaceable citizen out of the vehicle to take and unload our gun(s) along side the road, they are most likely among the least competent officers to be doing so.
So, how do we keep ourselves from becoming the next Mr. Arrington?
Well, under the circumstances of a traffic stop and Mimms, I don’t see a way we can, other than to not carry. …which is not an option.
What we can do is opt for holsters that can be removed without un-looping our belt, allowing for the gun and holster to be removed as a unit. Of course, it appears Mr. Arrington did exactly that and Cardwell still couldn’t figure it out.
All we can really do is remain calm, and before we exit, if it appears the officer is open to a little guidance, suggest that our pistol and holster can be removed together and there’s no need to expose the trigger. This may, or may not, end up with your pistol remaining in the holster as its removed from you.
However, your pistol will not be handed back to you loaded. Once an officer takes possession, they will unload it. So, there is still risk of UD and/or muzzling of you, the officer, or other bystanders.
Should everyone survive it unscathed, we now have the problem of what to do when they hand it back and say, “don’t load this until after I leave.” Here we are sitting in the driver’s seat trying to manipulate a holster back into place, load a pistol (or two), and re-holster it. …because we’re certainly not doing it outside the vehicle in public.
This isn’t good for anyone.
Conclusion
With more than half of the states now Constitutional Carry, the number of armed citizens on the road continues to expand. Where I live, local police simply assume everyone they pull over is armed, and knowing my neighborhood, that’s a safe assumption. However, in the case of basic traffic infractions officers simply don’t bring it up. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” is the general attitude here, and it works fine.
However, in “must notify” states like Michigan, one has to immediately inform the officer upon contact during a stop that you are carrying. It’s then up to the officer what, if anything, they want to do about it.
The solution to this is more training for officers – I don’t see 5 over in a 40 being a proper catalyst to justify juggling guns alongside the road with gloves on in the middle of February. But, until that training happens, we need to have a plan on how we will respond when we’re pulled over while carrying.
…and we also need a plan for what to do when the officer UD’s into us, or themselves.
Oh, and if anyone is wondering – Yes, Mr. Arrington has still been charged with running the red light.
“Accountability for police officers should be an expectation, not an aberration.” – Alex Padilla
