why didn t 17-year-old devin guilford just cooperate with the police officer when he was stopped? here is a look at some of the exchange. you have two choices. get with the program and start to comply with the traffic stop or you will be taken to jail. those are the two choices. driver s license, education and proof of en insurance, please. i do not have my license, sir. i am going to get it. you don t have your looifl? i do not have it. why is that? because i just drove my brother to the church. you do not have your driver s license on your person? yes, i do. will you get it? you do not have to see it. one of the attorneys for devin guilford s family is going to talk more about it, and cynth cynthia, thank you for being with us, and i have so many questions about the case. can i ask you why it is that devin s family believes that
station with these injuries. among the cited damage, there was a body camera broke n in pieces, and finding that guilford s wounds were from the front, and the trajectory of the bullets showed that indeed a struggle. the family is now filing a federal and civil lawsuit saying that the officer used excessive forces and violated his constitutional rights and caused his death. i have a loft questions for you about this case there, the constitutional rights and caused his death. and what is the family saying? fishlly, that it was an illegal stop that. he had every right to flash the lights at the police officer, and they say that the law says that. according to the michigan driver s booklet, you can t flash the high beams at and on coming car within 500 feet, and that it is illegal.
horrible, and the family can i cannot imagine. no, you cannot imagine. but from the legal perspective, i always say to every client who asks and the people who don t, comply now and grieve later. and so what happens is that you have to look at the point of escalation. you have a stop, and debate the legalities of it, and the issue is a flashing and the tickering of the light, and the officer felt it inappropriate and at that the point stopped him. at that point he asked him several times for the license. lack of compliance. he asks him to get out of the car. he does not want to come out. the officer orders him out. he orders him down. no compliance. he orders him to put the cell phone away, and no compliance. we don t see the critical video there, but if you blow it frame by frame, it appears some altercation, but what we do know is that there is a medical examiner, and apparently the shot
for any risk to police officers, and i think that is the combination of these attitudes is what is leading to the epidemic of people being killed by police in this country. well, you are the lawyer and you are not, and i m the journalist trying to get to the bottom of what san extraordinarily tragic situation, and we often say that if people would comply with with what is a simple request, then we wouldn t have the escalations, and the officer ends up in the ambulance with a bloody face saying that he tried to defend his life. it is troublesome how it escalate and will you come back on the program as this case proceeds if it does. i d be happy to. and cynthia heenan, attorney in michigan. and how likely to play out in cou court? well, a whole different set of reasoning, because it is 12 people just like you who sit in
that is why the officer pulled him over, and that is a traffic stop. and isn t it that the wording is nebulous, that you can t glare your lights in michigan and flashing might be something acceptable and where the rub is? that is what they are saying and the law is nebulous you are right, and in the traffic book that you read before you take the exam says it is illegal. that is interesting for the viewer viewers, because every one of us drives and flashes a light at the on coming vehicles. this is michigan. michigan. all right. i need to figure out here, jean, after this incident if the stop was not legal, what happened after, because it escalated from traffic, to misdemeanor to felony and then death. what about the subsequent dominos. he asked him seven times for the driver s license. and if you are asked, you have to show it. that is the law.