Attorney Uber Driver Films Cop Lying About The Law During Random Traffic Stop

The lesson here is clear: know your rights!

An Uber driver in North Carolina filmed police officers after they pulled him over, and the tape clearly shows the cops lying to him about what he could and couldn’t do.

Jesse Bright is probably a traffic cop's worst nightmare, because he’s not just a driver, he’s also a criminal lawyer. He only moonlights as an Uber operator to help pay off his school loans.

So when he was pulled over by police, he immediately started filming the scene. The idea is that, if you do end up in court, the case won’t become he-said she-said; you’ll have absolute proof of what happened, one way or another. And while this protects both police and citizens alike, some officers don’t like being taped as it negates their ability to control the narrative later.

That seems to be exactly what happened here. When the officer approached the driver, he immediately told him not to film what was happening. Bright refused, and then the cop went into full B.S. mode:

“Be careful because there is a new law,” the officer says. “Turn it off or I’ll take you to jail.”

The Uber driver/lawyer immediately called the cop out for lying – there’s no such law that says you can’t film a police officer. The conversation goes on a while longer, with the driver finally informing the policeman that he’s an attorney and, basically, that he'd f--ked with the wrong guy.

The officers would eventually bring a K-9 unit to search for drugs but, not finding anything, were forced to let Bright go. While he says he didn’t want to put the department on blast, they refused to return his calls about the incident, so he put the tape on social media, where it’s since gone viral.

The police department eventually issued a statement saying that the cop was wrong, that it’s completely within your rights to film a police officer. "As a matter of fact we invite citizens to do so when they believe it is necessary. We believe that public videos help to protect the police as well as our citizens and provide critical information during police and citizen interaction.” The officer in question, meanwhile, was ‘counseled’ after the incident.

Bright wants his experience to serve as a lesson. “I think the video shows that the police are willing to lie in order to coerce people into doing what they want them to do,” he said. “You just have to know your rights.”