Viral Video: Claims Of Racism As Campbell Police Officer Holds Vehicle Occupants At Gunpoint

A Campbell Police Officer is being criticized for holding two vehicle occupants at gunpoint.

Campbell Police Facing Criticism For Drawing Gun In Viral Video

Campbell, CA – A Campbell police officer is coming under fire after video was released on social media which shows an officer holding the occupants of a vehicle at gunpoint for nine minutes (video below.)

In the video, the passenger can be heard telling the officer that he was just reaching for paperwork. The officer calmly stays by them with his gun ready as he waits for backup. The video ends as the officer’s backup arrives.

The video really looks like a non-incident, but the over 1 million Facebook views and 6,000 comments with cries of racism and police say otherwise.

The video was posted with the description: “CAMPBELL COP IS A BITCH!!!!!!!!!! (Niga pulled out a gun cuz I reached for paperwork he asked for Campbell cop on 101 coming from Hollister exit bailey) 7/26/17”

KTVU contacted Campbell Police Department for a statement, and the agency responded saying that the car was pulled over for speeding. The officer asked the driver for her license and paperwork, and after looking several minutes for the paperwork, the passenger began to reach under the seat.

The officer drew his gun, and waited for backup before finishing the stop. The reason that the encounter lasted so long was because the officer works in an area where backup isn’t always close by.

“We understand that it is never a comfortable position to have a gun pointed at you, regardless of whether it is a police officer. Unfortunately, the length of time that the officer’s gun was drawn lasted much longer than normal based on his location. If this same situation would have occurred closer to back-up officers, it would most likely have been resolved much sooner,” Campbell Police Public Information officer Gary Berg said in a statement to KTVU.

The vehicle occupants were given citations and allowed to leave. The reason for the citations were not released by either the whiner or the police department.

It should be noted that new officers are generally not assigned to work on motorcycles, and the officer involved has likely made tens of thousands of traffic stops. Assuming he’s not in the habit of holding people at gunpoint for no reason (which would result in a short career,) the passenger must have done something very abnormal to cause the officer to pull out his gun.

People seem to be caught up on the passenger’s account of events. After all, he said he wasn’t reaching for a weapon, so why can’t the officer just believe him? These are people who’ve obviously never been in a fight with a suspect who’s doing everything they can to escape while screaming, “I’m not resisting.”

There’s also a lot of commentary about the officer having his gun out when he doesn’t need to shoot it. This may be alarming to some people, but people officers have their guns out all the damn time! I’ve had my gun out hundreds of times, and have never had to shoot anybody. According to internet experts, this is somehow an issue.

Do you think that this is being blown out of proportion? We’d like to hear from you. Please let us know in the comments.

You can see the video of the stop below: