Former NFL football player Lamar Lathon is lying about what transpired between himself and a Texas cop during a traffic stop. The 9-year veteran of both the Houston Oilers and Carolina Panthers was pulled over by a Pearland (Houston area) police officer at 1:15 am on September 1st for going 65 mph in a 50 mph zone. Lathon was contentious and uncooperative throughout, which resulted in the officer having to unholster his sidearm.
What happened next has a Texas law enforcement organization demanding an apology from Lathon. As reported by KHOU 11 in Houston, Lathon wrote on Facebook the officer had pointed the gun at his face, and that he felt “scared for his life.”
This outburst from Lathan prompted the Pearland police department to release the dashcam video of the incident and a lengthy FB post which proves that Lathon is lying:
Yeah, putting your driver’s license under the seat of your car is a totally normal thing to do. Why would a cop be freaked out over something like that? I don’t know, maybe because the space beneath the driver’s side seat is more often used to stow a gun as opposed to a driver’s license? Maybe because cops everywhere --but in the Houston area especially-- might be a little nervous after hearing of one of their brothers in blue shot 15 times for the apparent crime of pumping gas?
Lathon is a person who, if I was in the business of making technically unprovable accusations, I might accuse of actually trying to provoke this cop into overreacting, based on his belligerence, swearing, and refusal to see that he was a total idiot for putting his license under his seat, and then ignoring simple instructions not to reach for it.
However, I’m not. So, I won’t.
I will say that this video serves as a reminder of the tremendously dangerous and fundamentally unfair position cops find themselves in on a regular basis. Nearly being forced into violent confrontation because some moron wanted to go 65 in a 50. Taking on those kinds of risks in our defense should be cause for a profound respect for what the police do for us. Instead, it’ll probably be used to show the cop is a racist.
