Watch The Unbelievable Takedown Of ‘Sovereign Citizen’ Polite Cops Who Thought He Was Above The Law During A Traffic Stop
- ‘Sovereign citizen’ tried to get out of a traffic ticket
- Police officers remain polite and calm during a long discussion
Two Australian police officers outsmarted a ‘sovereign citizen’ who tried to escape a ticket for not wearing a seatbelt using meaningless ‘legal’ arguments.
Victorian officers stopped the man during a routine traffic stop who later filmed and recently posted the entire 11-minute-long exchange online.
He seems more interested in trying to outsmart the police officers for his video, asking for their business card, ABN number and, strangely, feeling it’s important that they accept that he’s a ‘living’ man.
The man asks if he is under arrest, to which an officer replies “no”, and then argues with the officer that he can leave.
‘What I am telling you is that you are being pulled over for the purpose of a traffic stop. Do you understand the difference between detained and arrested? says the officer.
The Victorian police officer remains calm and courteous throughout the 11-minute exchange despite the man repeatedly arguing with him.
The officer explains that when someone is arrested, some of their human rights are revoked because they are charged with a crime.
He is being detained to find out what has happened, and what my partner and I have observed is that he was traveling without a seat belt.
The interaction is the latest to appear online as part of the ‘sovereign citizen’ underground movement in which followers believe a country’s laws do not apply to them simply because they decide it doesn’t.
“I do not consent to any of this,” the man tells the officer.
The patient policeman then calmly replies, ‘Okay, but I still have to go through this process. I understand that you will not want to consent. That’s completely fine.’
He then asks the man for his name and address, which he declines to provide, asking under what law that is required.
The officer tells him the exact law: ‘The summary offenses law, which is 458.’
‘(That is) an act, not a law,’ argues the man.
“If I can’t provide his name and address, I can’t guarantee his appearance in court and therefore I need to stop or arrest him in order to identify him,” he says.
The man gives his name but does not give his address.
The officer tells the man to look up and read the law he has quoted on his phone.
At this point, the man becomes agitated and stumbles over his argument.
The officer’s partner then looks up the car’s registration and is told that they have found his address that way.
His partner searched the man’s vehicle registration after he refused to provide his name and address.
You are smiling at me. You have another person coming here with your guns trying to intimidate me and threatening to arrest me for arbitrarily thinking he was not wearing a seatbelt,” the man says.
The officer tells the man that ‘I did not in any way use the word arbitrarily’ and that they now have his name and address for the ticket so he can leave.
Commenters on the clip praised the officers for remaining polite and calm.
‘I started listening, and my annoyance factor was too high to continue. I don’t know how you can deal with these things all day and night,” one person said.
“It would be incredibly difficult to bear not only the nonsense this man says, but also the tone in which he says it,” said another.
‘Do you understand that by registering your vehicle and obtaining a license you have agreed to follow the rules of the road?’ added a third.