Did this guy go too far confronting NJ cop on video? (Opinion)

Last week a guy posted a video to the New Jersey subreddit showing a cop entertaining a young woman in the front seat of his patrol car. Apparently he was letting her flash the lights and turn on the siren.

The man taking a video confronted the officer, at first very politely, then very aggressively. He starts to berate the cop and curse at him for being in the wrong town, using taxpayer dollars and time to entertain a woman in his squad car. The young officer was wrong and even admitted to that as you can see in the video. Just be warned, this video is NSFW as it contains graphic language.

The man taking the video could’ve just called the department and also told them he had pictures and video of the incident to make sure that the department follows through on whatever disciplinary action they would take. But instead, he makes a spectacle of the incident and threatens, as he did to put it on YouTube and make the officer “famous“.

It’s one thing to point out police misbehavior, it’s another thing to think you’re some sort of vigilante rogue independent video journalist looking to score 1,000,000 hits on YouTube. What the cop did was wrong. But let the department handle it in whatever way they see fit. But what the person taking the video did was surely a sign of the strange times we live in and was also wrong.

In the last few years, we’ve seen police officers disrespected and their authority challenged in ways we never would’ve thought imaginable even 10 years ago. Now every yahoo with a cell phone video camera thanks it’s his right two be rate, cancel and embarrass anyone they please.

Cops go through rigorous training in the Academy and continuing training on the job. A job where they could lose their life at any moment on any given day. Just a little bit of respect in a little bit more civility would’ve gone a long way in this. But then we wouldn’t have a salacious video to be talking about now would we? We can happily do without the video and definitely do with more civility and respect in all quarters of society. Both the cop and the videographer were wrong in this case. But what do you think?

The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Dennis Malloy. Any opinions expressed are Dennis Malloy's own.