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Police Accuse Kansas Man of Having Drugs After Spotting ‘Tree Stuff’ In Car Window Seal

Posted by Rudy Samuel on Sunday, May 13, 2018

A Black man stopped by police had his car searched after police claimed they found “vegetation stuff” in the seal of his car window.

Rudy Samuel filmed the incident on Facebook Live last Sunday when officers in Winfield, Kansas pulled him over for allegedly failing to signal within 100 feet of a turn. The four-minute video shows an officer checking Samuel’s credentials at his cruiser as he waits anxiously for the cop to return.

“My insurance is good and my registration is good, so I don’t know what’s taking so long,” Samuel says in the video.

When the officer finally returns, he picks up a piece of “vegetation stuff” found wedged in Samuel’s car window seal. The officer tells Samuel he’s going to put the substance in a bag to be tested, but the man insists it’s only tree debris — not drugs.

“That’s tree stuff, man,” Samuel says. ” … That’s from a tree. I don’t even smoke.”

Minutes later, the cop returns and asks Samuel to step out of his car so it can be searched, claiming he doesn’t have to test the “tree stuff” before searching for drugs. Samuel balked at the officers’ order and asks repeatedly why he’s being ordered from his car. That’s when the officer is seen reaching in and forcibly removing the man from his vehicle.

The footage briefly goes dark but the audio is still rolling, capturing the moment officers tell Samuel he’s being detained so that they can search his vehicle. The Kansas man contests the search, however, saying that he doesn’t give his consent and that the debris has to be tested first.

The live stream ends after the officer picks up the phone and shuts it off.

“Yea straight Stereotyped me he grab my phone I told him he better get a warrant for it so he powered it off,” Samuel wrote in another Facebook post.

According to station NewsCow-KSOK, no drugs were found in the car and Samuel was not placed under arrest. Police issued him two warnings after the stop, however.

Winfield police haven’t commented on the incident.

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