Appeal of traffic stop findings comes before Citizens Police Review Board

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

The Columbia Citizens Police Review Board reviewed a traffic stop from September that gained attention on social media and called into question a police officer's response.

The Columbia Police Department last week released a video explaining the reason for the stop and the full body cam video of the stop.

In the video, police cite three hazardous moving violations as the reason for the stop: speeding, driving on the wrong side of the road and not coming to a complete stop at a stop sign.

Several questions were raised about a portion of the stop that circulated around social media, as some felt officers escalated the situation by detaining the driver and passenger.

Wednesday night the Citizens Police Review Board listened to an appeal about the stop and discussed it as a board.

Columbia Police Chief Geoff Jones was at the meeting but did not speak about the appeal.

The board made a motion for Jones to review the traffic stop once more. If he does not change his decision that no policies were violated, the board can then vote to send it to the city manager.

In the video of the stop, the woman in the car, Tenacius Jones, was put into handcuffs and detained by officers.

Police said in the video "community briefing" CPD released last week that Tenacius Jones began to grab items such as her purse when officers asked her to step out of the vehicle. In the video of the stop, an officer asks her to leave her purse in the vehicle but she refuses.

In the briefing video, Lt. Lance Bollinger said she argued when officers began to explain her options. She had earlier walked away from officers.

The video shows Tenacius Jones asks, "What's the options?" An officer then puts her in handcuffs and tells her he is detaining her because she is moving around while he is trying to talk to her.

Officers also detained the driver of the vehicle, Kamal AnNoor. In the traffic stop video, an officer asks AnNoor to exit the vehicle. The driver then continually asks the officers why he is being asked to exit the vehicle. The officer does not answer his question and tells him he will talk to him once he has exited the car.

In the briefing video, Bollinger says the officer who asked the driver to step out of the car used a technique called "ask, tell, make." Officers ask someone to comply, then escalate to telling them to comply and finally they force the person to comply.

When the driver does not step out of the car, the officer says, "I will talk to you in a minute. Step out of the car or I'm going to pull you out of the car."

At Wednesday night's meeting, AnNoor said he would have complied if he knew why officers wanted him to step out of the car.

"I asked the officer, I said, 'Officer, why do you want me to step out of the car?' That's all I wanted know. If you would have told me anything, OK I will step out the car," AnNoor said.

AnNoor then steps out of the car.

Members of the board said there was no reason the two should have been detained since officers were searching for marijuana, according to the city ordinance.

They also voiced concern about the way officers spoke to the two.

Tenacius Jones also said the officers should have treated them with more respect.

"What could have been done differently during the stop? The respect. After that, like do your job, we're going to give you what you need, why you pulled up … the respect. Respect number one," she said.

The police department also received questions about why the officer said there was marijuana shake in the vehicle in order to search it.

The briefing video contains an image of what Lt. Bollinger said looked like "a green leafy substance" on the floorboard of the vehicle. Bollinger explains in the video even a small amount of suspected drugs gives officers probable cause to search a vehicle.

One board member and the woman who filed the appeal, Rebecca Shaw, voiced doubt police would have been able to see marijuana shake from outside of the vehicle.

"Could he clearly see that shake in the car from his standpoint, or was this a pretext stop where they pulled a young black man over and they said, 'I see marijuana and therefore I'm going to search the car,'" Shaw said.

Later during the stop, officers remove Tenacius Jones from a patrol car. Another confrontation ensues with her demanding police tell her how they had probable cause for the search.

The video ends shortly after that exchange.

Several members of the board also voiced frustration there was no evidence of the hazardous moving violations that led to the stop.

At the very end of the community briefing video, Jones said CPD has identified a need to train on better communicating the reason officers are demanding something from people when it is safe to do so.

Check back for updates to this developing story.