He’s A Good Officer!
BY Herschel Smith
9 years, 5 months ago
News from the great Northeast:
MEDFORD (CBS) — A Medford police officer is on administrative leave after he was recorded threatening a driver during a traffic stop Sunday night.
“I’ll put a hole right through your head,” Detective Stephen Lebert is heard telling the driver, who recorded the heated encounter on his dashboard camera.
In the video uploaded to YouTube titled “Medford Detective threatens to kill civilian,” the driver explains that he made a wrong turn on an unfamiliar rotary at Winthrop and High streets.
The video shows Lebert, who was off-duty at the time, wearing shorts and an undershirt. He’s seen pulling in front of the driver in an unmarked vehicle, saying “now you’re done” and ordering him to roll down his window.
The driver, a software designer named Mike from Malden, then backs up before seeing Lebert pull out his police badge. He tells Lebert that he didn’t realize he was a cop.
“I’ll blow a hole right through your [expletive] head,” Lebert says as the driver pulls over. “You’re lucky I’m a cop because I’d be beating the [expletive] out of you right now.”
[ … ]
Medford Police Chief Leo Saco told WBZ-TV that Lebert was placed on leave when he arrived to work Monday morning. Saco said he couldn’t explain the Sunday night incident, but said Lebert is a 30-year veteran of the department and a good officer.
This is not the first time Officer Lebert got in trouble for a confrontation with a civilian that was captured on camera. He had to undergo counseling for an encounter during an arrest in 2012.
During that incident, he was being recorded by the brother of a man who was being arrested. Lebert poked the camera and said, “what you should do with your brother is take him up on the railroad tracks and tell him to lay down.”
The cop isn’t in a marked car, isn’t uniformed, and comes running up to a car in a threatening manner. The driver would have been entirely within his moral rights – and perhaps within his legal rights since he could have been shot at any time as far as he knows – to have put the car in gear and run the cop over.
But remember. He’s a “good officer.”
UPDATE: Just sent to the Medford PD chief: “My God I’m glad I don’t live in a collectivist “heaven” like you do, where it isn’t legal to own guns, and “the only ones” are the people who get to bully others around. The driver should have put the car in gear and run the bully over. I might have just shot him.”
On July 28, 2015 at 4:38 am, nighthawk said:
But these are “the only one” who are trained to , and have the intelligence , to carry a weapon to “protect and serve” the rest.
On July 28, 2015 at 5:55 am, Francis W. Porretto said:
If there’s still any “protect and serve” ethic remaining among American police, the feds are doing their best to erode it with their little gifts of military hardware and contingency plans for “right-wing insurgencies.”
On July 28, 2015 at 6:51 am, Seerightthere! said:
Police tend to “Protect and Serve” their own needs nowadays.
On July 28, 2015 at 7:00 am, Ed Hamilton said:
Gangsters with badges.
On July 28, 2015 at 8:22 am, Haywood Jablome said:
I guess the counseling didn’t last long…….
On July 28, 2015 at 10:13 am, Lina Inverse said:
I lived in Medford (pronounced Medfed, with a short, clipped r at the end of the second e) before I finally got out of the People’s Republic of Massachusetts, one major reason being the stress of anticipating the post-Stockton “assault weapon” laws that were inevitably coming.
But Massachusetts isn’t quite as bad as many other northeast anti-gun states, although it took a very bad turn recently when the license for long guns when from shall issue to may issue. The trick is live in a town or city (there is no unincorporated land in the state) with a reasonable police chief, and convince him to give you required long and handgun licenses, including concealed carry of the latter, which I’m told is not necessarily difficult. New Jersey won’t do the latter at all, New York is bad, of course, Maryland will only for a period where you can demonstrate you’re in serious danger. On the other hand, if you aren’t one of the anointed (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_University_of_Alabama_in_Huntsville_shooting#Brother.27s_shooting and note the first paragraph of the next “2010 Investigation” section), using your gun in self-defense will get you dragged through the courts, although the juries in the state at least back then were often not insane.
But, yeah, the police officer could assume that the clean cut software engineer he accosted was not likely to be armed, legally or otherwise, and as for being a “good” police officer, Medford has more than a little knowledge about the range of good and bad cops. A group of criminal law enforcement officers generally to the north of Boston started working their way up in the system, wiring promotions through the required state civil service exams, they’d break into the building where they were stored after the test taking and adjust the answers for themselves and others. A very chilling thing conspiracy.
All the while doing all sorts of crimes, from helping themselves to a drug store’s wares after it had been burglarized or robbed (got caught on video doing that), to, during the Memorial Day weekend in 1980, turning off the alarm to the police station for the Depositors Trust Bank in Medford Square and breaking into more than a thousand safe deposit boxes, a haul of perhaps 15 million. The conspiracy fell apart after one of them tried to kill another over a drug deal, by shooting down a stairway with a shotgun … and only wounding the target, who then went to non-crooked authorities and started squealing. Search on the phrase “The Cops are Robbers” for more, there was a book and TV movie made covering this.
An utterly corrupt state; one of the things that came up during the Amy Bishop aftermath was how two of the involved judges just happened to purchase million dollar plus lottery tickets at about the same time….
On July 30, 2015 at 10:03 pm, Phil Ossiferz Stone said:
> the license for long guns when from shall issue to may issue
So they’re choosing whether to license your 2nd Amendment rights. Where’s the class action lawsuit?
On July 28, 2015 at 10:16 am, R. Montalban said:
lebert disnt identify himself, and was dressed like a scumbag. no reason to think he was a cop. he was off-duty committing a crime, not off-duty performing police work.
the driver missed a great chance to rid the world of a violent criminal . he should have driven over lebert and reversed the car to finish the job.
lebert might have somehow survived and committed another crime or murdered the driver as lebert promised,
threatening to commit so IS a crime. using death threats to coerce anyone into ANYTHING is a crime.
the driver had every reason to believe this rabid dog would kill him.
interesting what the OP said. because saco has received similar emails yesterday.
lebert’s home address and personal info are being posted on craigslist rants and raves
( boston). his neighbors in woburn need to all apply for gun permits on the same day.
nobody has siezed lebert personal firearms because he isnt charged with a crime.
its truly amazing that woburn PD still allow this resident to have an FID card even to possess a daisy BB gun.
On July 28, 2015 at 12:33 pm, EmmyP said:
“The driver would have been entirely within his moral rights – and perhaps within his legal rights since he could have been shot at any time as far as he knows – to have put the car in gear and run the cop over.”
You couldn’t be more wrong
You don’t get to use deadly force because “could have…as far as he knows.”
You need to fix that before some idiot takes your terrible advice.
On July 28, 2015 at 12:42 pm, Jack Crabb said:
EmmyP: You don’t get to use deadly force because “could have…as far as he knows.”
The magic-blue-costumed ones use that exact line of thinking all the time, except they word it “officer safety”.
On July 28, 2015 at 1:15 pm, Publius said:
“I felt threatened.”
On July 28, 2015 at 1:14 pm, Publius said:
No, YOU are wrong: “Under Massachusetts law, if you are attacked or reasonably believe that
you are about to be attacked, placing your physical safety in immediate
danger, you have a right to defend yourself. However, you are obligated
to take reasonable steps, if available, to avoid physical combat before
resorting to force. Moreover, you are not allowed to use more force than
is reasonably necessary to defend yourself. You may use deadly force –
force intended or likely to result in the death or great bodily harm of
an assailant – only where you reasonably believe your assailant poses a
threat to cause you great bodily harm or death.” The motorist was confronted with an unidentified individual threatening deadly force. He was fully justified to respond with gunfire (had he been so equipped). Lucky for the swine he didn’t get capped.
On July 28, 2015 at 12:35 pm, whotothewhat said:
Of course in my neck of the woods, if some idiot runs ups on me screaming and threatening me and being a licensed CCW I would have to draw on him, particularly since he was not a uniformed officer or in a marked car.
What a jackass he must have a death wish.
On July 28, 2015 at 1:10 pm, Publius said:
Deadly force would have been fully justified under the law, even in MA. But imagine if the driver had been black? George Stephanopoulos and GMA would have been camped on Det. LeBert’s front lawn this morning. But instead, he’s comfortably manning desk duty after committing his crime instead of manning the chow line in county jail. What a great country!
On July 28, 2015 at 3:59 pm, Seerightthere! said:
Of course he’s a good Officer…. That and a belligerent little Tyrant.
On July 29, 2015 at 1:00 pm, reed_rosa said:
To me, the more troubling aspect of the event is when off camera uniformed officer shows up. The victim of the road rage incident attempted to explain how the angry non-uniformed officer jumped out of his truck and started making verbal death threats. Off camera officers said something to the effect of “you’ll just get yourself in more trouble, move on.”
I’m not a cop, but can not imagine telling someone that had a serious complaint against a co-worker to “move along”. How about, “The shift commander is officer Thomas, he can be reached at..”, or “If you feel you need to make an official complain, you should contact the public / internal affairs division”.
On July 29, 2015 at 2:22 pm, Jack Crabb said:
You are correct, you are not a cop. No self respecting blue-costumed idiot would suggest such a thing as you just did. It sounds like you probably have morals, which, nowadays pretty much excludes you from being a pig. (And the fact that you are here at captainsjournal.com shows that you are probably too smart to be a pig, too. Good on ya reed_rosa.
On July 29, 2015 at 7:41 pm, Paul X said:
Run him over, back up, and run him over again.
On July 30, 2015 at 10:51 pm, unclezip said:
Not “civilian”, but “citizen”. Remind them that they too are in that category.