A California woman who posts motorcycle-related content was recently pulled over twice by the same officer. After the first encounter, she posted a video about the experience. When the officer pulled her over again, he confronted her about the video while explaining what she needed to correct on her motorcycle to make it road-legal.
Barbie (@rnbarbie87) recorded the moment she was pulled over by an officer for the second time. As he tries to pull her over off of a busy highway, she struggles to find a safe place to park. You can hear him telling her over the loudspeaker, “Get away from the guardrail. Keep going forward, keep going forward.” As she’s struggling to take her helmet off so she can hear him better, he prompts her to move forward again and again until they’re in a safe area.
The officer, who pulled her over recently, approaches her and asks her to get off of her bike. He tells her several things that are wrong with her motorcycle, such as an improperly mounted license plate and turn signals that need adjusted. He instructs her to remove her helmet and asks if he can take a look at her registration and VIN. The officer then asks her, “Is your camera on on the bike?” He then asks her to move her camera forward but she tells him she can’t, and it’s legally allowed to be there.
In a second part to Barbie’s video, she shows how the officer confronts her about their first interaction showing up on social media. He asks her point blank, “Are you gonna put this on YouTube, too? Because the last time you put it on, I became famous. But it was not a clear depiction of what actually happened.” The officer explains that his dashcam video looked differently from hers, and her video had “cuts and edits.” Apparently, he thought her video made him look bad on purpose.
The officer doesn’t stop there, clearly frustrated about the fact that he showed up on her social media. He says his video was very different from the “3 or 4 little clips” that she put together of their first interaction. She tells him, “Well, yeah. It was a 20-minute interaction. I’m not trying to argue.” He replies, “My point is that it was all cut up.” At this point, Barbie is fed up with the officer’s attitude and states, “Well, obviously I can’t put 20 minutes on Instagram.” She tries to explain, “It wasn’t out there to try to make you look bad.” The interaction ends soon after that, with Barbie and the officer going their separate ways.
The video immediately garnered attention from viewers, with many feeling strongly about how the officer handled this. One commenter stated, “Sounds like he’s trying to intimidate you and retaliate. I’d go to his command.” Another commenter added, “Yeah, you got pulled over for the last post!”
Other commenters were concerned about the frequency of her being targeted by this officer. One commenter mentioned, “Is he using Flock to stalk you?” Another stated, “Yeah, he was up to something shady. Always stand your ground. Never allow them to cut your camera off.”
For now, commenters continue to debate both the officer’s reaction and the motorcyclist’s right to record their encounters. Whatever people make of the stops themselves, it is certainly an unusual situation when a video of your first traffic stop becomes a talking point during the second one.
