Texas cops mistakenly pull over, arrest woman with 4 small children inside car

[SummerSnow]

The officers in Forney were looking for a car with four suspects who waved a gun out the window. The officers quickly realized their mistake and then tried to calm down the four children who were 10 years old and younger.

The officers were searching for a beige or tan Toyota with four black males after authorities were alerted a gun was pointed out of the window.

Police pulled over a burgundy red Nissan Maxima driven by Kametra Barbour's on Aug. 9 that was spotted in the same area as the other car, the station reported.Barbour was immediately pulled out of the car and handcuffed with her four children inside."Yes sir, what is wrong? My kids. They are 6 and 8 and 10, 9. What are we doing?" she asked. "Sir, what is going on? Oh my God. You will terrify my children.After his mother was pulled away, 6-year-old Ryan can be seen exiting the car and walking to the officers with his hands up.

Police can be heard on the tape recognizing the children were too young and did not match the description they had been given. They can also be seen trying to calm down the screaming children in the car and assured them no one will go to jail.A Forney detective told the station the officers' actions were appropriate due to the seriousness of the call they were investigating. Barbour told the station she understood the officers made quick decisions, but is still bothered by what happened.

"I need you to make sure you have all the facts, because you can't just say, 'OK, I'm sorry,' and then I'm over it," she said. "I can't. Every time I listen to and hear or think about it, it bothers you. I can't just say, 'I'm fine. It's OK. It's not a big deal.' It is."


**incompetent racist motherfuckers* her car was a red Nissan, the description was tan Toyota. The mother was female and there was children. The description was adult males.And the station officers said this was 'appropriate'. But the stupid cop even asked the other cop when the 6 year old emerged from the car whether or not he looked young.




http://abc13.com/news/police-pull-mother-and-children-over-at-gunpoint-by-mistake/277709/
* verbatim recording of incident*



http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/video-texas-cops-mistakenly-arrest-woman-4-kids-car-article-1.1915009

[Autumn]

1. On a positive note she wasn't shot dead, neither was her 6 year old son who approached the cops.

This is disgusting and disgraceful. This was not fucking 'appropriate'

[Arkansas Granny]

3. That was my first thought, too. She's lucky they didn't just start pumping bullets into her car.

This is inexcusable.

[tblue37]

21. I am reminded of the two women who were shot at a gazillion times

by cops searching for that Christopher Dorner fellow in California. The elderly woman and her daughter were driving through the neighborhood in the early morning to deliver newspapers. Their vehicle absolutely did NOT match the description of the suspect's vehicle, and of course the occupants of the vehicle were two small Hispanic women, not one large African-American male, but the cops didn't hesitate for even an instant. The second they saw a moving car, they unloaded their weapons into it, not bothering to check first to see who it was they were shooting at:

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/feb/08/local/la-me-torrance-shooting-20130209

<snip>

As the vehicle approached the house, officers opened fire, unloading a barrage of bullets into the back of the truck. When the shooting stopped, they quickly realized their mistake. The truck was not a Nissan Titan, but a Toyota Tacoma. The color wasn't gray, but aqua blue. And it wasn't Dorner inside the truck, but a woman and her mother delivering copies of the Los Angeles Times.

<snip>

In an interview with The Times on Friday, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck outlined the most detailed account yet of how the shooting unfolded. Margie Carranza, 47, and her mother, Emma Hernandez, 71, were the victims of "a tragic misinterpretation" by officers working under "incredible tension," he said.

<snip>

Law enforcement sources told The Times that at least seven officers opened fire. On Friday, the street was pockmarked with bullet holes in cars, trees, garage doors and roofs. Residents said they wanted to know what happened.

Glen T. Jonas, the attorney representing the women, said the police officers gave "no commands, no instructions and no opportunity to surrender" before opening fire <emphasis added.

<snip>

[Arkansas Granny]

31. That was the incident I was thinking of, also.

[Enthusiast]

54. OMG!

A few bad apples.

[Iggo]

19. Those must be the good cops I keep hearing about, then.

[etherealtruth]

23. Sick, but that was my first thought, as well

Had it been a dad with his four kids ....

[Autumn]

25. Had it been four young black men on their way home from school

or just out having fun it may have very well ended different.

[MoleyRusselsWart]

35. You just gave me the chills

[BaggersRDumb]

59. I actually laughed when I read your response, because it is true and so god damn sad

and pathetic at the same time, that it made me laugh.

Not your response, mind you, but the reality of what you said, how pathetic are WE

friggin assholes...

[Kalidurga]

2. FFS

She probably has two legs and two arms just like the suspects. There were other people in the car with her. It was a CAR sheesh. I get so sick of people picking on cops for these small errors in perception. Like that time the police were shooting at trucks because a cop killer was on the loose. I don't know why people think they should have to pay attention to things like the color, make, and model of a vehicle, it should be enough that a suspect is on the loose and they have a duty to protect and serve.

[SummerSnow]

8. Yeah, we should start a 'leavethepolicealone' thread.

[Kalidurga]

12. better put a sarc tag on it just in case

maybe someone could even do a vid like the "leave Brittany alone" guy.

[Chemisse]

45. I am going out on a limb to assume this woman and her little ones were black

Just like the suspects.

And clearly that is enough.

[Kalidurga]

48. Well that clearly exonerates the police.

I hadn't really thought about that. They all look alike. Amiright or amiright?

[NOLALady]

4. Is this a joke?

[Viva_Daddy]

5. Everyone makes mistakes. The OUTRAGE is how the woman was treated.

[Iggo]

22. Tan car with four adult males. Red car with one adult female and four small children.

That ain't a mistake.

That right there is a monumental "how the hell do they even have jobs, let alone jobs as police" fuck-up.

[malaise]

37. +1,000

Mistake my ass - and then no apology

[Enthusiast]

56. PLUS ONE!

[Brigid]

6. The car wasn't even the right color. Not even close.

Good Lord.

[theHandpuppet]

11. They didn't care about the color of the car

Just the color of the people.

[tblue37]

24. This!! + A brazillion! nt

[Curmudgeoness]

29. Bingo. nt

[Chemisse]

46. Exactly.

[Enthusiast]

57. PLUS ONE, a whole bunch!

[Nuclear Unicorn]

20. Beige. Burgundy. Both begin with a "B." Common mistake. Could happen to anyone. *sarcasm* nt

[Jackpine Radical]

7. Easy mistake to make.

They were all black, weren't they?

Anyway, it's a good thing that Officer 2 didn't misunderstand Officer 1 and think that he meant "gun" as a verb rather than a noun:

Officer 1: "Do they look young to you?"
Officer 2: "They do to me."
Officer 1: "Huh?"
Officer 2: "They do to me."
Officer 1: "Yep, they're young."
Officer 1: "Gun down, gun down, gun down!"

[SummerSnow]

10. The officer looked at the 6 year old boy and questioned whether or not he looked like a man.

wtf? Unfuckingbelieveable. And had their guns drawn too!!!!

[cwydro]

18. That was a tense video to watch.

I kept wondering what would have happened if the little kid started to run for mom, and she ran toward him.

[Earth_First]

9. Tan/beige v.s. Burgandy...

Not even close.

Handcuffed?

What.The.Fuck.

It should have IMMEDIATELY been obvious that they fucked up and should have never gotten to the point where this mother was removed from the vehicle, detained and warranting a need to calm down the kids.

In fact, the arresting officer needs a physical immediately to determine proper vision and rule out color blindness which could pose a public safety threat in the future.

FFS.

[whistler162]

13. Incompetent yes.. racist the jury is out

on that one.

[Jackpine Radical]

16. Oh, yes, I see your point.

4 black males in a tan Toyota--a black woman & 4 kids in a red Nissan--easy mistake to make. They all look alike, ya know.

[whistler162]

44. Obviously you didn't even bother...

label everything as racist it is so much easier than actually thinking.

[Jackpine Radical]

62. So this tan Toyota van full of young white males

comes to the attention of the police when they wave a gun out the window.

The cops then go stop a red Nissan with a young white woman and four pre-adolescent kids & order her out of the vehicle at gunpoint.

Likely?

[avebury]

14. She should be consulting an attorney about

suing the living daylights out of those cops and their police force. The color of the vehicle was not even close to the car that was called in. While everyone may not know makes and models of cars they generally get the color of the vehicle right. The original report did not state anything about a grown woman in the car which should have been the first clue that the cops screwed up. Those children are going to be traumatized and the police need to be paying for the cost of therapy that those children will need.

As a white person, stuff like this makes me beyond angry. We live in a country where one group of people have to have to talk to their children about what can happen to them in the outside world and another group of people who are just as apt to be perceived to be illegals then citizens just because of their ethnic background. Children in this country should never have to be raised with a sense of fear just because of what racial, ethnic or religous background they belong to.

It seems like the only group that can have a smidgeon of belief that the police are out there to protect and serve are the white people (particularly "Christians&quot . Equality just does not exist to any other groups.

[Ilsa]

32. I keep hoping that the lawsuits

will cause police departments to do better training. Instead, I wonder if the costs of the lawsuits are an excuse not to train.

[avebury]

36. If tax payors have to pay enough money in court costs, jury verdicts, or

settlements then maybe they will rise up and demand change. Unfortunately, as long as certain segments of society are view as less then the whites, I doubt that will happen. This is evidenced by some of the totally heinous things being said in Missouri in support of the shooter and against the people of Ferguson.

[ellenfl]

15. obviously tx is only an open carry state if you're white. eom

[gaspee]

17. This being Texas

Why would someone seeing a gun be a problem? Don't Texans get to run around with their guns hanging out whenever they want to?

[salib]

50. THANK YOU! I was thinking the same thing

A group of Good Ole Boys (not black) in a car waving a gun. No problem.

It is dangerous here because they were reported to be black.

[tblue37]

26. From the article, when a cop is asked whether the stop was at all appropriate:

The police department defends the traffic stop saying the officers responded appropriately to what they believed was a dangerous situation

"For the nature of the call - that a weapon was involved - yes," said Detective Clay with the Forney Police Department told ABC affiliate WFAA.

Earlier in the video interview, the same cop points out that the cops who stopped her were watching that exit, and the woman "took the same exit <emphasis added." How stupid is that? The car isn't even vaguely similar, the occupants don't bear any resemblance to the suspects they are looking for, but, hey, they did use the same highway exit, so that is a close enough match for these incompetent cops.

The cop who is handcuffing the woman tells her that her car matches the description they have of a vehicle they are after. How in the hell does a Red Nissan with a woman and 4 small children match the description of a tan Toyota with 4 adult males?

And that "Does he look young to you?" crap. The kid was 6 freakin' years old. How could that possibly lead the cop to question whether he looks young? Oh, wait--I know:

http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2014/03/black-boys-older.aspx

[font size = "+1"][font color = "red"]Black Boys Viewed as Older, Less Innocent Than Whites, Research Finds:
Police likelier to use force against black children when officers ‘dehumanize’ blacks, study says[/font][/font]

WASHINGTON — Black boys as young as 10 may not be viewed in the same light of childhood innocence as their white peers, but are instead more likely to be mistaken as older, be perceived as guilty and face police violence if accused of a crime, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.

<snip>


The study also involved 264 mostly white, female undergraduate students from large public U.S. universities. In one experiment, students rated the innocence of people ranging from infants to 25-year-olds who were black, white or an unidentified race. The students judged children up to 9 years old as equally innocent regardless of race, but considered black children significantly less innocent than other children in every age group beginning at age 10, the researchers found.

The students were also shown photographs alongside descriptions of various crimes and asked to assess the age and innocence of white, black or Latino boys ages 10 to 17. The students overestimated the age of blacks by an average of 4.5 years and found them more culpable than whites or Latinos, particularly when the boys were matched with serious crimes, the study found. Researchers used questionnaires to assess the participants’ prejudice and dehumanization of blacks. They found that participants who implicitly associated blacks with apes thought the black children were older and less innocent.

<snip>

“The evidence shows that perceptions of the essential nature of children can be affected by race, and for black children, this can mean they lose the protection afforded by assumed childhood innocence well before they become adults,” said co-author Matthew Jackson, PhD, also of UCLA. “With the average age overestimation for black boys exceeding four-and-a-half years, in some cases, black children may be viewed as adults when they are just 13 years old” <emphasis added>.

[passiveporcupine]

27. I was pulled over once at night, in a remote and rural area.

The two cops approached me (one on each side of my vehicle) guns drawn. The one on my side looks in the window at me, and then scans the rest of the car interior, and asks me what I'm doing in the area. I explain why I'm there, and then he says "OK...sorry, we are looking for a red vehicle (mine is reddish) with a young guy in this area who is running from the police".

The guns drawn scared me, but they didn't hassle me. They did not ask me to get out of the vehicle. They could see I was an older woman and not a young man. No need to drag me out and cuff me. This incident in the OP is appalling. It was totally unnecessary to treat her that way. Oh...btw, I'm white. If I'd been black, in a big city, I suspect it would not have gone down that way.

And the cops here tell her that they had a description that matched her car and license plate? WTF?

[truth2power]

28. Pain & suffering! $1,000,000 sounds about right....

Hey, Forney PD...get your wallets out!

And that official who said it was appropriate. Should have been fired yesterday! Too stupid to be walking the streets by himself.

[tblue37]

34. Traumatized children. They should get more than that, I think, since the lawyers will take 50%

of any award or settlement.

[truth2power]

51. Works for me! If some of these municipalities

were driven into bankruptcy by the lawsuits, it would serve to focus their attention, and this shit would stop.

You can't appeal to anyone's moral standards anymore. The almighty dollar is the only thing that matters to the Empire of Chaos.

[Curmudgeoness]

30. Meanwhile, the original culprits go driving away.

Any time cops waste time with something as stupid as this, and there is no way that it is who they are looking for, the real suspects will have freedom to get away. Good job, Barney Fife.

[RedRocco]

65. which may well have been the point

if they are hassling this woman, they aren't having to face the ones waving a gun about

[whereisjustice]

33. maybe we should wait a week or two for the facts - i.e. until the police have time to

fuck over her personal character, destroy the incident report and coach some witnesses.

[surrealAmerican]

38. I guess they're just lucky it was the six-year-old who got out of the car.

The cops might not have noticed that a ten-year-old "looks young" too. Just like they didn't notice what color or make the car was, or that the driver was not a man.

[tblue37]

67. See my post #26 above, about the study that shows cops

drastically overestimating the age of black children and assuming they are guilty more readily than they do with white children.

[mainer]

39. Wait, it's Texas. I thought you could legally drink, drive, and wave a gun there.

So what was the crime?

[stage left]

40. OMFG!

Do all the police in the US need to be fired for gross incompetence? Does he look young? Hell yes, he looks young.

[TNNurse]

41. Mistake??

Ignorant, racist, incompetent, but I doubt is was a mistake. OMG, a black person in a car, we must do something!!!!!

[Savannahmann]

42. I'm starting to wonder if the cops are colorblind.

OR the think everyone else is.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/05/justice/california-dorner-shooting-review/

[alarimer]

43. Okay. what kind of idiot can't tell the difference between beige and burgundy?

Stupid cops.

I give them a pass on it being a different make. Lots of cars look similar. But it was a completely different fucking color?

Dumbasses.

[cstanleytech]

53. Agreed 100%. nt

[tblue37]

68. The same kind of idiot that can't tell the difference between a

woman and four small children and a group of 5 men.

Not to mention the kind of idiot who can't even tell whether a 6-year-old child is young rather than all grown up.

[MoonRiver]

47. I hope they sue those assholes.

[RebelOne]

55. So do I, but I doubt anything will come of it.

If cops can get away with murder, they won't be charged with this.

[Chemisse]

49. It's lucky - and sad - that the small child knew enough to hold up his hands.

Too bad that won't be enough in a few years when he is older.

[cstanleytech]

52. IMO the cops need to be fired if they only pulled the van over because they were looking for a tan

van and are to stupid to realize that burgundy is in no way close to tan.

[Enthusiast]

58. Kicked and recommended!

Thank you, SummerSnow.

[mercuryblues]

60. About 15

years ago, I was driving home with 2 of my kids in the back seat. A cop was coming at me in the opposite direction. He slowed down and stared at me really hard. I thought nothing of it.

On the evening news it was reported that a near by bank had been robbed. The get away vehicle was the exact same car that I drove. Why was I not stopped and questioned at the very least??? What is the difference?

My friends tell me I am so white, I glow in the dark.

[Chemisse]

61. I just watched the video clip and I think this may have been an understandable mistake.

It's dark out, so the color of the car may not have been clear until the stop. That also means the witness report of the other car may not have been accurate in color.

The cop car was a ways behind the stopped car. It looks like, rather than go up to the car and look in, they stayed back and ordered the driver out of the car (which would be safer if someone in the car was armed). So they didn't know the car was loaded with children until a few minutes later when one of them got out.

They handcuffed the mom, which seems outrageous, unless you consider she could have had a carload of armed men with whom she was conspiring. If left unconstrained, she could have run off, sabotaged the cops in some manner, or perhaps run back to the car and driven off.

They weren't rude or rough with her, as far as I could tell, and the specter of the two cops trying to sooth a bunch of terrified children was rather comical (not that it was funny that the kids were scared, of course).

Now the proper thing for a police force to do, if it wants to 'serve and protect' its community, is make a gesture to make up for the mistake, like calling the next day and inviting the whole family out for ice cream cones - or some such thing that would sooth things over and take the edge off the trauma.

[whereisjustice]

63. absolutely nothing reasonable about this

Cops in Texas shoot first. The idea that the police automatically have a right to put you in handcuffs based on unfounded suspicion is ridiculous. One misstep and that woman and her kids would have been slaughtered.

They were close enough to see the color of the car didn't match the report

They were close enough to see the woman was not a man which didn't match the report.

They were close enough to see the kids in the car didn't match the report.

But most importantly, visibility was good enough to determine this was a black person driving.

Were they handcuffing white people as well, out of caution? You know, on the account of it being too dark for a witness report to be reliable.

OK, then. This was another bullshit stop, driving while black.

This incident will live on in the lives of these kids and community where they live, further flaming the rotting core of trust between public officials and private citizens.

How bad is Texas?

A 93-year-old woman who was fatally shot by a police officer outside her central Texas home was apparently upset that her nephew was trying to take away her car keys after the Texas Department of Public Safety had refused to renew her driver's license.

This cops second kill in two years. They fired him, of course. Too late for smoothing things over.

BTW - Darren Wilson is also from Texas.

Ice cream cone?

The right thing to do is for this woman to get a good attorney and sue the Texas town who did this.

[BlindTiresias]

64. Lol

ice cream cones? Are you for real?

[Number23]

66. Seeing that child getting out of that car with his hands in the air... oh my God

To say that my heart has leapt into my throat is an understatement. It's still there, actually.

This is heartbreaking and terrifying. I am so glad nothing happened to that little boy and to his mother.

[tblue37]

69. If I had been that little boy's mother, I probably would have peed my pants.

Cops are so trigger happy, especially when they see black skin, that I could easily imagine them emptying a clip or two into the child as soon as they saw his skin color, before even taking time notice that he was a little kid--especially since he got out of the car unexpectedly, without being told to by the cops, so that they were probably rather startled when he first stepped out.

[Crunchy Frog]

70. I thought waving guns around was legal in Texas.

Or is that only for white people?

[betsuni]

71. Nissan, Toyota --- all those Japanese cars look the same.

(too lazy to put sarcasm thing here)

[Catherine Vincent]

72. This is unbelievable

I haven't clicked the article yet but I wonder if there really was someone waving a gun out the car and if this was one of those bogus 911 calls from people.