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OPD traffic stop causes social media stir

Posted at 11:47 PM, Mar 24, 2017
and last updated 2017-03-25 00:47:54-04

A video posted on Facebook shows a heated confrontation.  A young couple says Omaha Police pulled them over with no reason.

The two minute has been viewed over 90,000 times and it shows Trenton Reis and Willecia Jones in a traffic stop near 24th and Camden. The recording shows an intense conversation between Jones and an officer asking for her ID.

At one point the officer tells Jones he will pull her out of the car, and when she continues to not show her ID, he pulls her out of the car and onto the grass.

“There was not presentation of name, why don't you want me to have it, there was not presentation of the violation, they never said and I asked him several times,” said Reis.

In the video you can also hear an officer say they were following Reis and Jones before they pulled them over, but Reis said he had his blinker on and they sat there for two minutes before police pulled up behind them. 

“The things that bothered me the most was people saying I got what I deserved when I didn't show ID,” said Jones who said it was her right not to show her ID.

But Criminal Trial Lawyer Randy Paragas said it was OK for an officer to want ID during a stop.

“In order to make a valid traffic stop, the officers need a reasonable articulable suspicion that a crime has been committed, is being committed, or is about to be committed,” said Paragas. “Once the stop is made it is reasonable for the officers to want ID and to ask for ID and that a citizen.”

Reis said the officers did not give them a ticket or citation and he is actually applying to become and OPD officer.

OPD said they have an internal investigation into the incident.