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Notes -
Having to say "yes sir, no sir" to a cop who rolled up with an attitude and is clearly looking for an excuse to fuck you over is one thing, but I have watched a lot of bodycam footage where the cop just asks "License and registration, please" from some guy who ran a red light and what should have been a routine stop turns into chaos and a felony charge because bro's monkey brain decides the cop is out to get him and he's not going to "show his belly." If you are barely restraining an urge to attack a cop because he pulled you over, you're not eating shit from an unjust authoritarian system, you have impulse control problems and you are poorly socialized.
This also seems to happen at airports a lot. Cops show up, tell an upset (often inebriated) passenger that they have to leave because the airline is refusing to board them, and give them every opportunity to leave peacefully until it's clear they aren't leaving any other way but being dragged kicking and screaming.
Can cops be power-tripping assholes? Sure, but I am skeptical that's what happened here. Especially in the age of bodycams and everyone around filming any public interaction with the police, I would bet money that O'Keefe wound up in cuffs only after refusing every opportunity not to escalate to that point.
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