Are There Good Cops? Part 7
By 
Stephanie Bottom was terror-stricken in the driver’s seat of her SUV, trying not to move as three officers in Salisbury, N.C., held her at gunpoint during a traffic stop for speeding in May 2019.
Bottom, an Atlanta librarian and grandmother of five, was driving to North Carolina for a relative’s funeral when police stopped her vehicle after it was going 10 mph over the speed limit, according to a federal lawsuit she filed Wednesday. Bottom, who did not immediately realize police wanted her to stop, was looking for a safe place to pull over when police used spike strips to stop her SUV.
Before Bottom, 68, could get an answer as to why the officers had their guns pointed at her head, police grabbed the librarian by her arm and hair and threw her from her car to the ground, body-camera footage shows.
Police then allegedly tore Bottom’s rotator cuff as they detained her, shrieking, facedown on the pavement of the interstate. After she cried for police to get her medical attention — “I am hurting really bad” — one of the officers on the scene congratulated his law enforcement colleagues on a job well done, according to the lawsuit.
“That’s good police work, baby,” he said, according to body-cam footage.
Bottom, who is Black, is suing three officers, the sheriff of Rowan County, N.C., and the city of Salisbury, accusing them of using excessive force and violating her Fourth Amendment rights during a traffic stop that seriously injured her. The lawsuit obtained by The Washington Post, which was filed in the Middle District of North Carolina, accuses Salisbury officers Devin Barkalow and Adam Bouk and Rowan County Sheriff’s deputy Mark Benfield of hurting the librarian so badly that she was forced to miss eight months of work. The allegations were first reported by the Charlotte Observer.
Good police work, baby!
It’s amazing the extent to which white liberals will defend the cops in the comment threads to these posts, which show the total ignorance as to what the cops actually do. I want to point out this comment by Lurks, which may in fact be one of the worst comments in LGM history:
Lurks jam • a day ago • edited
“Hello? Is this the not-police? There’s a bunch of racist yahoos getting ready to lynch a black guy and I was hoping someone could come down and give them a stern talking to.”
Dude–the cops are the ones doing the lynching!
Those who think the police should still exist need to ask themselves why people are saying they should not before getting all concerned about what happens when those scary people come down my street…..