Officer Points Gun at Passenger for Almost Nine Minutes

Cell phone video has emerged of an officer pointing a gun at a passenger for over nine minutes after pulling over the vehicle.

The incident occurred just outside of San Jose. The officer was with the Campbell Police Department and was on a police motorcycle.

According to the Washington Post, the officer stopped the car after radar allegedly showed it traveling at 85 mph. The officer then asked the occupants for a driver’s license and paperwork related to vehicle registration, leading the two occupants digging around inside the car for the requested materials.

At one point, the stories being told by the driver and the passenger “diverged,” and the passenger allegedly reached under his seat. The officer responded by pointing a gun at him.

CNN HLN posted a condensed video of the incident. In it, viewers can hear the passenger asking the officer to quit pointing a gun at him, but the officer is unfazed by the requests.

The couple was eventually allowed to go, and the Campbell Police Department released a statement in support of the officer. One portion of the statement says:

The officer informed the occupants to wait in the vehicle as he prepared to walk back to his motorcycle to write a citation. It was at that time that the passenger began reaching under his seat. It is not clear why the passenger chose to reach under the seat since the officer was not requesting any other paperwork.

Unfortunately, the passenger’s unexpected movement towards the bottom of the seat, caused the officer to perceive a threat and draw his handgun. The officer requested additional officers respond to assist him so that he could safely resolve the situation. The comments on the Facebook video bring up a lot of different viewpoints about how the officer could have responded differently or used different tactics. Our officers receive a tremendous amount of training on a consistent basis and that training is what dictates our response. This is intended to protect our officers as well as those they come in contact with. The unfortunate reality is sometimes people attack police officers, as tragically occurred in the City of Los Banos this morning when two officers were shot.

HLN reports that the passenger apologized for his exchanges with the officer.

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.