It took less than a minute for Keene Police Sgt. Gene Geheb to drag 77-year-old Lynn Bedford out of her car, even though she said she would give him her license.
She just didn’t do it fast enough.
Geheb had pulled her over last month after clocking her driving 66 mph in a 50 mph zone.
Bedford, who was driving home after playing piano at church, explained that she was in a hurry because she had a bladder infection and needed to use the bathroom.
But Geheb had no sympathy.
He goes on to note that Geheb's chief backs up his conduct in the video, saying it neither violated law nor policy.
It struck me that those who want to find fault with cops will see this as a "contempt of cop" video, a cop who needlessly dragged an old woman from a car for no good reason. Those who love cops, or hate old women, will see this as a video of an uncooperative woman, refusing perfectly proper commands and begging to be dragged from her car.
I saw both. I saw two egos clash. I saw a women who didn't quite grasp that when pulled over by a police officer, the driver doesn't get to run the show and tell the cop how the stop is going to proceed. I see a cop who didn't have the discretion of a child, and immediately spiraled down, into that place where cops go when someone isn't obsequious, even though they know it's going to end badly when it doesn't have to.
As for 77-year-old Lynn Bedford, my suspicion is that she's more used to doing the telling than being told, and doesn't like the latter much. I bet she would have been plenty comfortable in the blue uniform pulling some young whippersnapper over in church for sneaking a look at a young woman's patent leather shoes. Now, not knowing her, this is sheer speculation, but she had attitude right out of the box. That has to come from somewhere.
Then there's Sgt. Geheb, who wishes he had taken a deep breath before flying off the handle like this old woman was a gangbanger. Frankly, he probably didn't violate either law or policy, but he surely behaved, like a total ass. Would it have killed him to listen to the old woman's problems for a moment? Was it necessary, even if it was permissible, to drag her out of the car onto the ground?
Would he have been as cool about it had that been his mother?
Watching this video and being aware of the outrage over this interaction, the fact that the driver was a 77-year-old church lady was certainly the critical distinction. Would anyone have bile rising in their throats had this been a 19-year-old black kid with grills, droopy pants and a baseball cap turned backward? Had this kid said the same thing to the cop that this women did, how many people would have thought, "what an idiot. He got what he deserved."
Why? Is the handling of a citizen any different when they're an old white woman and a young black man? Does one have the right to be treated kinder and the other not? Is the urge to urinate stronger in one than the other? Doesn't every person deserve to make it through a traffic stop without being manhandled because he lacks the bone in his head that makes him jump as fast and high as the cop commands?
The anger this video evokes reflects not only the handling by the police officer, but our own bias about how different people deserve to be treated differently. Yet that's not how it's supposed to work. Equal protection suggests that the old white woman and the young black man be treated the same. So would we react the same, or are we just as tainted in our expectations as anyone else. Or do we adjust our expectations to align with our personal sympathies, treating the elderly better than the young, or white better than black, or church ladies better than gangbangers?
There's a certain element of schadenfreude in this video, given that Bedford, had she been a bit less arrogant and self-absorbed, probably would have driven away unscathed to the comfort of her bathroom. I've met Lynn Bedford a thousand times before, and she behaved the same with Sgt. Geheb as she has with me, refusing to yield control no matter what the situation. It's quite frustrating and exasperating.
Now reimagine the entire interaction if both had been less concerned with being in charge of the situation and having the other bend to their will. Apply to that to every interaction between a cop and citizen, and wonder how many needless arrests, how many tases, how many broken bones and even how many dead bodies, could be avoided.
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