A California police officer stops a black man for 40 minutes for not having a license plate light and falsely accuses him of possessing marijuana.

A black California man pulled over earlier this month for a non-functioning license plate light was detained for 40 minutes, where he was accused of hiding marijuana in his daughter’s backpack and ordered to get out of his automotive because he was a registered gun owner.

Fresno police officers also threatened to interrupt his window because he didn’t roll it down far enough to satisfy them.

Ryan Coley recorded the arrest on his phone on November 8 and posted the video to YouTube the following day, where it was picked up by Abiyah Israel, a former police officer turned activist who runs the University’s YouTube channel We the People.

“This movie is incredibly frustrating. The more you watch it, the more frustrated chances are you’ll feel,” Israel said in his video.

“They start by violating this guy’s rights, extending the detention, wanting to search his kid’s book bag, insisting he leave the vehicle, (then) when he wants to leave the vehicle, they lock him in the vehicle and then search him with his hands on his head,” he continued Israel. “You’ll see what I mean, so prepare to meet some extremely clueless police.”

In a telephone interview with Atlanta Black Star, Coley explained that the officer who pulled him over watched him as he sat within the parking zone of a Fresno smoking lounge, waiting for a friend to get off work.

“He comes in his car to my car and lights up the inside for a very long time,” Coley said. “He then parked his car across the street at the liquor store with his lights off.”

Coley watched because the officer parked his automotive, but he didn’t care much because he wasn’t breaking any laws or having anything illegal in his automotive.

But when his friend left work about 40 minutes later and got into his own automotive, Coley followed him and that is when a cop pulled out of the parking zone and pulled him over for a missing license plate light.

But as an alternative of writing him a ticket and letting him go, the officer detained him for 40 minutes, which Coley said would never have happened had he been white.

“It would be a completely different story for a white guy,” he said. “He pointed the gun at me because he had seen me in a tobacco shop earlier.”

Coley said he didn’t start recording until about eight minutes after the stop when he realized the officer was looking for an excuse to arrest him.

Traffic stop

The video begins with a police officer insisting that he saw marijuana in Coley’s daughter’s backpack but not within the automotive in the course of the traffic stop.

Initially, Coley refused to open the 7-year-old’s backpack – who was not within the automotive – asking the officer to easily write him a ticket over the license plate light and let him go.

However, the officer refused to let him go, so Coley asked to talk to the officer’s sergeant, who continued to demand to see the backpack, regardless that he informed Coley that “possessing pot is not illegal” in California.

“He tried to get me to accuse myself of a crime, first with a bag of marijuana,” he said. “If I said yes, there is some marijuana in there, that would be the procedure to get me out of the car.”

“The second charge was a weapons charge,” he said. “If I said it was locked in my rear trunk, which is legal, it would be another search of my car.”

The policeman threatened to arrest him if he did not get out of the automotive.

“We don’t need a reason to drag you out,” the policeman said. – If I need, I can get you out.

Coley said that although he knew his rights, he ultimately complied with the officer’s commands to avoid arrest.

“I didn’t want to spend the weekend in jail,” he said. – I actually have kids, man.

First, he opened his daughter’s backpack to indicate the officer that the alleged marijuana was nothing greater than a piece of art and craft that his daughter had been working on at college.

He then obeyed and got out of the automotive, however the officer stopped him from getting out of the automotive on his own, acting as if he feared for his life because he was a registered gun owner.

“He first reached into my car to open it without my consent,” Coley said. “Then he pulled me out of the car with his hands on my head and patted me.”

However, the proven fact that his gun is registered with the state shows that he’s a law-abiding citizen, because the state conducts searches on people attempting to register their guns, prohibiting people from legally possessing guns with a prior arrest for a felony or misdemeanor domestic violence charge.

Nevertheless, the officer patted him down in hopes of finding a concealed weapon, which might not be allowed because he does not have a firearms license.

Coley said he was allowed to depart with a citation for license plate lights, which he plans to fight in court because all he has to do is buy latest lights and show the judge.

However, he said he desired to take legal motion over his long detention but could not find a lawyer. He also said that the arrest had traumatized him and that he was now afraid to drive.

“Fresno has bad cops and I don’t want them harassing me,” he said. “I may have dreadlocks in my hair, but I’m not a gangster.”