recently in winterville north carolina a man who was being questioned by the local police chose to assert his right to remain silent and not answer questions both the officer and the chief of police decided that they were deeply hurt by people in their community choosing to assert their rights and took to facebook to complain about how difficult their job is when you assert your rights in the post the chief explains that an adult driver would not communicate with our officers and stated that he did not answer questions he claims that this behavior although legal not only makes our jobs more difficult but time-consuming and often more unpleasant for everyone involved i certainly felt for the pain of the officers in this situation therefore i called the department and gave them a suggestion of how they might be able to better illustrate to the community exactly the type of pain and suffering they experience when you choose to assert your rights warnerville police department hey how you doing this afternoon i'm doing great how are you doing good are you an officer with the department uh yes sir yes sir okay um i was wondering if you guys have a p.o box where i could send you guys gifts sure let me get that for you [Applause] okay are you ready i'm ready it's po box one four five nine okay and that's one of once two eight five nine zero two eight five nine zero yes sir okay i i i saw your chiefs post recently about how your officers were just trying to protect the community and getting hassled so i just wanted to send something over um if it's all right with you i'm going to send a couple of dolls and i think uh for a lot of people you know it's it's easier to understand things if you see it visually than if you just hear about it right yes that could be the case so um i'm gonna send a few dolls over and if you could have the officer um that was involved in that encounter that night just put a circle or an x anywhere on the doll where he was hurt by someone asserting their rights and uh and then maybe put pictures of that up on the facebook page so that people can better understand well sir i mean that is probably not going to be something that's appropriate uh but if there is something that you would like to send to us you can do that um yeah i mean i mean as far as you know responding in that type of way that probably wouldn't be a good look for our department so okay well i mean i just mean our chief you know our chief already put up the post and explained um our side of things so that's pretty much the extent of it i mean people are free to comment of course because they have been and that's fine yeah yeah sure i just wanted people to be able to visually see where it's hurting the officers because i think it's really unfair that uh you know the officers have to deal with this type of pain and sorrow and hurt and i you know i just want people to be able to see exactly where it hurts you know right no i i understand i understand the concept but um at this point we can just continue to do our job to the best of our ability and you know some people's minds just can't be changed but the ones that can that's our goal yeah sure well i mean i guess um i mean i'll send a couple of dolls anyways one for that officer and and you know send a couple extras in case any other officers have been hurt by people asserting their rights so they can use them as well but i'll also i'll send some pacifiers for any of the uh other officers that have been hurt so that they can kind of suck on those pacifiers they're very soothing to babies so okay so well you have the information that you requested okay thank you so much ma'am and you have a great day you're welcome these people are clearly experts on what is or isn't a good look for the department the post written by the chief of police reads citizens there are two sides to every story you hear regarding the police and what they do or don't do today was one of those times that i must ask for you all to step into the shoes of your officers i will refrain from using names locations or other identifying characteristics as it is a sensitive issue at the moment let us first start that within any neighborhood in winterville that has had vehicles broken into during the night should be able to relate the police department is working hard to prevent this and are encouraged by citizens and leadership of the town to provide presence and prevent further crime on this particular morning at 1 am our officer observed an occupied vehicle in a neighborhood that has been victimized prior from a distance the officer observed the vehicle come to a stop and no one exited the vehicle to go inside a residence what do you do as an officer do you drive away as not to offend someone do you drive away because you are scared do we just hope that this vehicle has not dropped off three others out on foot to rummage through everyone's vehicles or shall we try to determine if all is safe and the folks there belong there at 1am we did the latter and we will continue to do so we did exactly what a reasonable person would expect the police to do at 1 am while most folks are asleep we got out to speak to the driver or any other occupants to determine their business and if they belong to the neighborhood the driver an adult male would not communicate with our officers and stated he did not answer questions this behavior although legal not only makes our job more difficult but time-consuming and often more unpleasant for everyone involved a better route to this encounter would be quote i just got off work and i live here the conversation ends everyone is satisfied all is good and police involvement is over this actually raises suspicion and concern among officers and lastly we were scolded by a mother who thought that we had wronged her son somehow she demanded to be shown what had happened with her son nothing happened other than someone has taught this young man to resist communicating with police that this behavior is noble real or some other adjective or part of some narrative of course as facebook posts suggest this was disturbing and absurd others shed tears for the wrong some suggested our officers should be fired on the contrary we commend the officers for having the courage to approach an occupied vehicle at 1am with unknown intent to protect lives and property while others sleep thankfully this was a resident parked in front of his residence in this case it did take much longer to figure this out though as quote they don't answer questions lastly our officers were scolded by a mother who determined her son was wronged somehow he demanded to be shown what had happened she like so many others demanded names and badge numbers sadly we have body cameras that show exactly what was said and how it was said the rudeness attitude and loss of composure in most cases is not your police officers my door is always open to discuss how we do what we do it is okay not to always agree but not to present a narrative of victimization that is unfounded chief of police ryan c wilheit notice that in the post the chief said we have body cameras that show exactly what was said and how it was said great chief show us the video the chief claims that there's two sides to every story but i disagree i think there's three side a side b and then the truth the problem is that north carolina is the least transparent state in the nation when it comes to releasing body cam footage in 2016 a law was passed to protect police from public scrutiny saying that only a judge can order the release of body cam footage in north carolina the chief's post was a response to a formal complaint made by the victim's mother as well as her post on facebook about the incident in her post she claims that her son was held for 20 minutes or so based on the chief's own post the police had no reasonable articulable suspicion of a crime nor did they have a traffic violation that they stopped him for in his post the chief clearly articulates that his officers observed an occupied vehicle in a neighborhood that had been victimized previously he then goes on to say that this was the reason for the encounter but leaves out that this was not just a consensual encounter it was a detainment when this young man's attorney sues these officers and their chief they'll likely use cases such as state v schmidt and state v miller which state that people being in a high crime area is not reasonable articulable suspicion and even says that being in close proximity with others who are suspected of criminal activity does not mean that you are suspected of criminal activity the chief claims that his officers did what a reasonable person would expect the police to do in this situation however courts have already ruled that this behavior by police is not reasonable the truth is that it's likely that a crime has been committed at some point in every single neighborhood in america therefore if this were considered reasonable then police would never need anything else ever again to detain someone legally the claim essentially becomes that crime exists it has happened here before and therefore nobody gets any rights based on the accounts of both sides it appears to me that police yet again detained someone without reasonable articulable suspicion of a crime it seems pretty obvious that the woman is upset that her son's rights were violated and the chief of police is upset that her son attempted to assert his rights but like i said there's three sides to every story and we want to see the body cam footage contact information is in the description and the pinned comment below for you to petition the court to release this footage