I totally remember. It was a weird moment that I’ve never seen on body cam before. Very peculiar, seems like an inner voice telling the officer that they didn’t have it quite right.
I agree. I think they sensed they needed to get BL to calm down, above all, and to not create an unjust and unsafe situation for Gabby by arresting her. That was the crux of that call. They had every right to arrest Gabby, as she admitted scratching and hitting Brian and he had visible marks on his body. They did. not want to do that. While we can say that would have "saved" her, it might not have. She would have stayed over night, had to contact her parents for bond money, and stay in Moab until the case was disposed - and I bet anything BL would have stayed too and then they would have gone onward in their Van Life and still had the same problems. BL is the problem.
I don't think there was an exactly right way for LE to handle this - but the message for all of us (as so many of you have said) is to educate and train our youngsters how to deal with such situations and somehow make it okay and normal for them to ask for help when they need it. Nearly all 20-somethings believe they should and must handle things all on their own, though.
It's possible that BL had no intention of pulling over. They had just got into a physical alteration, he was most likely irate and had lost control of himself. He may have decided to try and out run the cops! C'mon, one doesn't accidentally go 30+mph over the speed limit.
They only pulled over due to GP hitting his arm. He had lost control of himself and Gabby snapped him out of it.
Why his speed didn't warrant a Super Speeder ticket has me baffled...??
They were on an offramp that went right into a federal stop station called "National Park Entrance." It's a full stop. There was a person there with a Park LE vehicle - no one just breezes through those entrances (and it's a federal crime to do so).
The highway. had a 55 mph limit, the offramp was 45 mph and then the 15 mph sign can be seen just before the place where BL finally stopped. The thing is, one is supposed to notice the upcoming speed down-regulation and slow down so that they are actually going 15 mph in that pedestrian area (there were few pedestrians there at that time of day, but it's still 15 mph because...that entry station with its STOP sign is just a hundred yards ahead).
BL was too distracted by what was going on in the car and watching LE lights in his rear view for him to realize he was supposed to slow down - but he barely made it 50 yards past that 15 mph sign (if that).
I don't mean to nitpick, but this is about the 10th time someone has posted this - and it makes LE look bad. They are trained to pull people off
at the nearest safe exit as so many horrible accidents happen at the side of major highways, like the one Gabby and BL were on. There are so many reasons for this - and many. LEO's who have been hurt standing on narrow shoulders next to whizzing traffic.
Further, in a DV situation, you want the pull out to be just like the one they used in this case (which was likely also the first one they came to after catching up with the couple). Often, LE will wait until the suspect vehicle is pulling off the highway and then hit the siren. In this case, LE knew that it was perfect for a DV stop - one of the trickier situations to deal with. At any rate, BL and Gabby were headed to Arches that night - that was their exit. There was ample pull over space and room for more LE vehicles (which did appear). They also knew a federal LE officer was just ahead (the Park Ranger, she came to inspect the scene and briefly talked to LE and I think to Gabby).
BL was NOT driving 3X the speed limit for miles when the sign for 15 mph (and there's just one of them) can be seen plain on Google street view and also in the bodycam footage - it's not far from where BL did eventually stop and could not have been in a 15 mph for more than a 10th of a mile - because that's how long that speed zone is - the rest of the offramp is indeed 45 mph.
