No wonder people nationwide are losing respect for the "Authority" of the police. Between being made highway revenue collectors and the "above the Law, 'cause I am the Law" attitude, police professionalism is at an all time low. You guys work for the public!!

Case in point,

"A motorist who refused to discuss his personal business with a St. George, Missouri police officer was threatened with arrest last Friday. Brett Darrow, 20, caught a St. George Police Sergeant named Kenline stating that he had the power to invent charges that would put Darrow behind bars. "Try and talk back... to me again," yelled Sergeant Kenline. "I bet I could say you resisted arrest or something. You want to come up with something? I come up with nine things." The incident began at around 2am. Darrow was to meet a friend who was working late and was going to pick him up. Darrow headed toward a 24-hour commuter parking lot in an unincorporated part of Saint Louis County in his 1997 Nissan Maxima. He put on his turn signal and entered the lot which, aside from Kenline's cruiser, was essentially vacant. After stopping the car, the police officer approached and began questioning Darrow about what he was doing. When Darrow declined to discuss his personal business, the police sergeant exploded. Although the video clearly shows Darrow driving properly and using his turn signal, the police officer insisted that Darrow had broken the law. "Oh, while you were coming towards me you were swerving back and forth within the roadway," Sergeant Kenline said. "I might give you a ticket for that. You want me to come up with some more? When you turned in, you failed to use your turn signal, your right turn signal." Without the video, Darrow points out that he would have stood no chance disproving the officer's word in court. Twenty-eight percent of the St. George municipal budget comes from traffic citations. Darrow wonders how many of the tickets were legitimate. "Looking into this guys eyes, he was crazy," Darrow said. "I was really scared he was going to assault me. I just wonder how many other people have been arrested on these charges." After ordering Darrow against the car and searching him, Sergeant Kenline released the motorist. View video of incident below. Warning: Police officer uses graphic language."

Hey Brent, turn off your radar detector next time, wouldja?

Update... The cop car video footage is "missing". How convenient. Something stinks in this small town....

"St. George — A young St. Louis man who videotaped a police officer's angry taunts during a traffic stop, and later posting the footage on the Internet where thousands of viewers have watched it, said Tuesday he wants the officer fired.

Brett Darrow, 20, met with St. George Police Chief Scott Uhrig for more than an hour Tuesday afternoon and also filed a formal complaint against the officer, Sgt. James Kuehnlein.

During the meeting Darrow asked to see the videotape from Kuehnlein's police car. But according to Uhrig, that footage, inexplicably, is nowhere to be found.

"That's the million-dollar question," Uhrig said. "Our policy says any contact the officer has with the public has to be on tape."




The Article.

Update 2- Cop gets canned. Good....

ST. GEORGE, Missouri (AP) -- A police sergeant whose berating of a driver was captured on videotape has been fired.

Aldermen in the town of St. George, a St. Louis suburb, voted 5-0 in a closed meeting Monday to fire Sgt. James Kuehnlein. Notice of the firing was posted Wednesday at City Hall.

Kuehnlein's attorney, Travis L. Noble, said the officer received a letter Thursday detailing the reasons for his firing. Noble said he would review the letter with Kuehnlein before deciding on a course of action.

Brett Darrow, 20, had a video recorder inside his car when Kuehnlein approached him in a commuter lot in the early hours of September 7.

In a video that was widely viewed on the Internet, Kuehnlein is heard taunting and threatening Darrow, sometimes shouting and using profanity.
"It's what I wanted the whole time," Darrow told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "The conduct was not forgivable."

Police Chief Scott Uhrig said he recommended that Kuehnlein be fired based both on his language in the tape and because he violated department policy when he failed to tape the encounter himself with his police car's camera.