‘SHUT THE FUCK UP AND GET OUT OF THE CAR’

The shocking moment a Georgia police officer drags a crying 65-year-old grandmother from her car during a traffic stop

BY Rory Tingle

Daily Mail
May 11, 2018

This is the shocking moment a screaming 65-year-old grandmother was dragged out of her car by a police officer during a traffic stop.

Squad car video shows Officer James Legg shouting 'you're not in charge, shut the f*** up' before pulling Rose Campbell out of her vehicle during the heated encounter on Windward Parkway in Alpharetta on May 4.

Campbell's arrest followed a stand-off lasting more than five minutes during which the driver refused to sign a traffic violation ticket and then ignored repeated requests to leave her vehicle.

The Alpharetta Police Department posted the video on Facebook with a statement from Public Safety Chief John Robinson in which he said Legg's behavior 'did not represent our organization'.

The footage starts with Campbell's silver SUV being pulled over by the side of the road, before Officer Michael Swerdlove approaches her to check her license and explain she had been ticketed for drifting from one lane to another.

After hearing she had been ticketed, Campbell asks Swerdlove to call a supervisor, which he claims to have done. But she refuses to sign the ticket - on offense in Georgia - so Swerdlove asks her to step out of her car so she can be arrested.

'Step out of the car', Swerdlove says repeatedly, to which Campbell replies, 'I'm going to wait for your supervisor.'

The exchange then becomes heated as Campbell closes her door on Swerdlove, which he reacts to by shouting at her to leave the vehicle and trying to pull her out.

'Stop it! Your supervisor needs to come now, now!' she replies, at which point a passenger gets out of the back door and walks away from the confrontation.

'You need to get out of the car, you're under arrest,' Swerdlove says. 'Step out of the car, you need to come now.'

'I won't until your supervisor comes,' Campbell says. 'This is abusive behavior, no sir. I need to supervisor, now!'

'You're under arrest, you are resisting arrest,' the officer replies.

At this point reinforcements called by Swerdlove arrive in two police cars with their sirens blaring before pulling up next to Campbell's car.

A second officer, who has not been named, gets out of one of the cars and approaches Campbell, telling her: 'I need you to get out of the car, step out.

'Come out of the car, you're been arrested. We're not going to try and hurt you.'

Officer Legg walks to the other side of the car as the polite, but heated, encounter continues.

Campbell says, 'I won't come out for him,' referring to the first officer.

The second officer says, 'Ok, alright, as he gently helps her out of the vehicle.'

But at this point Legg begins shouting curses at Campbell. 'Hey, you're not in charge, shut the fuck up and get out of the car,' he screams.

Swerdlove and the second officer continue moving Campbell out of the vehicle, but Legg then grabs her and pulls her with considerable force.

She begins screaming as three other officers arrive at the scene.

'Where's your supervisor, where's your supervisor,' Campbell screams.

At this point Legg grabs the woman again and pulls her towards the cop cars.

'I want the supervisor, where is the supervisor, I need him now,' Campbell says. 'I'm going to have a heart attack, my blood pressure is sky high.'

Off-camera, one of the officers says he is going to call a medic, to which she responds by demanding again to see a supervisor.

One of the officers can be heard telling Campbell not to slam her body against the cop car and saying 'please, I need you to sit down now.'

Recounting the incident, Campbell said she felt 'scared' and 'ganged up on' by the officers.

'I just panicked, I felt like my heart exploded. Am I in a movie? Is this a movie? I couldn’t believe it. It was surreal,' she told WSB.

'I didn't expect that in America. I didn't expect that in Atlanta. I didn't expect that especially in Alpharetta.'

Legg was immediately suspended and has since resigned. Campbell says she wants an apology and more training for officers and has not decided whether to take legal action.

Public Safety Chief John Robinson said in a Facebook post about the video: 'We strive to be a transparent department.

'If we are going to be 100 percent transparent, that means that we also must be willing to share with you any major concerns that arise regarding employee performance and behavior.

'There are aspects about this video that simply do not represent our organization.'

EDITOR’S NOTE: Here is a perfect example of violating one of Sir Robert Peel’s golden rules of policing: “No quality is more indispensable to a policeman than a perfect command of temper; a quiet, determined manner has more effect than violent action.”

A simple traffic stop for swerving between lanes turned into a major embarrassment for the police when a cop got pissed off at the Grandmother. For failing to obey his commands.

Granted she was wrong. But there was no reason she couldn’t have been turned loose and served with an arrest warrant at a later date. The cop had written up a citation, so he must have had her ID and residence address.

With all the cop cars showing up running hot, it appears that the cop never called his supervisor. The supervisor probably could have gotten her to sign the citation and everyone could have gone their happy way.

There have been conflicting reports about the offending cop. One, that he was reassigned and the other that he was forced to resign.