ELK GROVE, Calif. — Despite racial profiling allegations, law enforcement experts told ABC10 the Elk Grove Police Officer seen in a video gaining national attention on social media did nothing wrong.
They say she remained calm, followed standard procedure at all times, and social media has helped blow this incident way out of proportion.
"Do you understand how violent you're being right now?" Officer Misty Johnson of the Elk Grove Police Department said to Stacy Harvey-Slocum, according to new body camera video released by her department.
"I'm being violent!?" Harvey-Slocum said.
Johnson pulled Harvey-Slocum's 19-year-old son, Tobias Eagle, over for rolling a stop sign right in front of her home. He says he believes he was racially profiled.
"We give her the license, registration, and she asks if I'm on probation. I'm like no, my mom also says no at the same time and the police officer starts being rude and condescending towards my mom," Eagle said.
Eagle says he felt like the officer was being aggressive.
"During the whole altercation, I'm trying not to talk, I'm trying not to move, because the police officer has her hand on her gun," he said.
But a national and state police practices expert, Ed Obayashi, a Plumas County deputy sheriff said, he believes this officer did nothing wrong.
"This comes nowhere near a terminable action, at the very most, this is a public relations issue," Obayashi said.
And he says verbally asking if someone is on probation or parole isn't a requirement, but it is standard procedure.
"At no time do I hear her raising her voice. I see no actions on her part, aggressive actions. She is basically what any officer would be taught to do in those circumstances," he said.
And ABC10 is hearing of other interactions with this same officer that paint a completely different picture.
"I feel like I'm guilty for getting treated like that and next thing you know, you see the same exact cop at the same exact stop sign for the same exact ticket with a whole different scenario. I was probably in and out within two minutes," said Mohamad Esmail, a 21-year-old that got pulled over for running the same stop sign as Eagle two days later.
Eagle even captured his positive interaction with Johnson on his cell phone where he can be heard saying, "I'm going to tell you something, you seem like a nice cop, right?"
Johnson responded with a smile saying, "I try."
Elk Grove Police say they are bringing in an outside agency to conduct an independent investigation into this incident. They say they did have a meeting set up between the police chief, the officer, and the family but the family canceled it in order to file a formal complaint.
The department added that the officer was wearing an unauthorized "blue lives matter" face-covering during the traffic stop.
"One of our core responsibilities is to project neutrality and pay deference to others' perspectives; in this instance, we fell short of that responsibility," Hannah Gray, a spokesperson for the Elk Grove Police Department said in an emailed statement.
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