A power-tripping Los Angeles sheriff’s deputy handcuffed a Black man in front of his children and forced him into the back of a patrol car after pulling him over for running a stop sign earlier this month.
Alec Sisson said he had his two sons in the car with him, ages 8 and 10, and was less than two blocks from his mother’s house when he was pulled over after admittedly rolling through the stop sign at a slow speed.
The 29-year-old man said he handed over his license and registration, but then the deputy began fearing for his safety after learning Sisson did not have proof of insurance, ordering him out of the car.
“I was driving my mom’s car so I did not have a copy of the insurance card with me but I told him I could call my mom and she would bring out a copy,” Sisson explained in an exclusive interview with Atlanta Black Star.
“But he told me to turn the car off, roll down all of my windows and step out of the car.”
Once he was handcuffed and placed in the back of the patrol car, the deputy then used his flashlight to search under the seats of his car while his children were still in the car.
The deputy whose name is Guerrero tried to justify his actions by citing United States Supreme Court case law. The 1977 holding in Pennsylvania vs Mimms gives law enforcement officers the right to ask drivers to step out of their cars during traffic stops for officer safety.
Guerrero did not express any particular reason he did not feel safe as he and Sisson wrangled about the lack of insurance card.
“I said, ‘I’m sure your guy can run it on your computer to validate this car has valid insurance,” Sisson said.
But the deputy insisted on handcuffing and frisking him which was when Sisson told his 10-year-old son to record the interaction.
Sisson posted the video on TikTok where it went viral, showing the deputy handcuffing and frisking him then trying to stuff him into the back of the police car as Sisson asked for a supervisor.
He repeatedly asked the office, “what are you doing?”
“Where’s your supervisor?” he pleaded. “I’m not letting my kids be unattended.”
Watch the video below.
Case Law
Pennsylvania vs Mimms allows law enforcement officers to ask drivers to step out of the car under the guise of safety.
In addition to the stop sign infraction, the deputy claimed the father had no proof of insurance, which is considered a traffic infraction in California, not a crime, according to a California law firm, which states the following on its website.
Driving without insurance is more of a regulatory violation than a crime and as such, is an infraction, not a misdemeanor.
The California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training, the agency that certifies law enforcement officers in the Golden State, describes reasonable suspicion as follows:
Reasonable suspicion is the standard used to justify a detention. It exists when an officer has sufficient facts and information to make it reasonable to suspect that criminal activity may be occurring, and the person to be detained is connected to that activity.
In fact, California law enforcement officers are able to determine whether a car is insured through their in-car database. Guerrero could have easily confirmed the car was insured in a matter of seconds, according to the California Department of Motor Vehicles.
Escalating Traffic Stop
Sisson who lives in Nevada but has been staying with his mother in California to help her because she has fallen ill, has a driver’s license out of Nevada and also a concealed weapons permit.
Although he was not carrying a gun at the time, he informed the deputy of his concealed weapons permit as he was being handcuffed in the hopes the deputy would recognize he was a law-abiding citizen since he had to undergo a background search to obtain the permit.
But the deputy just escalated the traffic stop by calling for backup, resulting in at least four more patrol cars pulling up to the scene.
Sisson says arriving deputies falsely accused him of having a suspended driver’s license out of California and also threatened tow his car and have his children taken by the state child protective services agency.
Fortunately, his son had called his father’s wife, who called his mother who arrived with the insurance card to show the deputies.
That was when they released him after 20 minutes of detainment with only a citation for failure to stop, which is considered a vehicle code violation in California, punishable by a fine.
However, Sisson hopes to retain an attorney to sue the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department for escalating what he apparently considers a pretextual stop and detaining him in handcuffs.
“The traffic stop left me very distraught,” he said.
