Pats Have Their Hands Full; Officers Handled Themselves Well

Video of Patriots' newly acquired wide receiver Michael Floyd's DUI surfaced last night via the police officer's body-cam and of course it brought a lot of attention with it.

In case you happened to have been in a 48-hour coma and are just now coming out, the Pats acquired the former Cardinal after he was release after falling asleep drunk at a red light in Scottsdale, Arizona. When police found him, his car was still in "drive," his foot on the break and eyes closed. Police said he slept through two light cycles - yes that's right folks TWO light cycles.

But the biggest reaction that came out of of the video being released is one from Boston Globe Red Sox writer Pete Abraham. Moments after the video was released he tweets one of the officers at the scene escalated the situation.

Not too sure about how everyone else who has seen the video - if you haven't seen it yet it is here - but there was no way one can say the officer made things worse. Let's take it step by step and really see if the officer was "escalating" the situation.

The police cruiser is behind Floyd's Cadillac Escalade SUV in the far left lane at a red light with a car to his right. When the light turns green, the the car to his right proceeds through the light along with three other cars but the Escalade does not move.

It looks to be a short while later, the officer grows suspicious, gets out of his cruiser and starts to approach the Escalade. Some time has to have elapsed because when the officer is approaching the Escalade you can visibly see another police cruiser in front of the Escalade meaning the first officer called for back-up.

When the first officer reaches the driver's side window, he looks in and see's Floyd's head back, mouth wide open and eyes closed. The officer yells over to the other officer "hey I'm going to try to wake him up."

The first attempt is relaxed, knocking his flashlight on the window and calmly saying "Scottsdale Police." No response. He then yells over to his fellow officer, who's name is Chuck, on the other side the car asking if the other door is unlocked. Negative.

Knowing that the car is still running and still in gear, the officer knows he has to find away to wake up the individual or he would be putting others at risk. He uses the flashlight to knock on the window a few times. No response again. Growing more concerned for others safety including the safety of his fellow officer, whose cruiser is parked directly in front of the Escalade, he bangs on the window harder and announces who he is. This time Floyd wakes up, disoriented, and the officer instructs him to put the car in "park,"and turn off the car twice.

After instructing Floyd to turn off the car and unlock his doors multiple times, Floyd rolls down the window. But he still does not turn off his car or put it in park which aggravates the officer. Floyd was doing nothing the officer was asking, no wonder he was getting pretty aggravated and asks another officer for assistance so he can unlock the door to put the car in park.

Even when the officers asked Floyd to get of the car, he initially resisted and the officer had to repeat himself and help guide him out of the car. They didn't pull him out of the car. They didn't even touch him. They were just doing their job. It was Floyd, who was being the problem.

He had no idea what was going on and wasn't listening to the officers. Floyd appeared shocked when the officer told him what he had done and did not know the precise location where he was - although he did know he was in Scottsdale.

None of the officers' actions were aggressive or escalating the situation. Just like in all walks off life when a person is not listening, you tend to get pretty aggravated and upset but they didn't act on it and get hostile. They actually remained pretty composed. If the officers got physical with Floyd then we'd be having another discussion but they didn't. They handled it exactly the way they were trained to handle a person like Floyd.

That's why I tend to support the police officers because there are more officers who are handling bad situations correctly opposed to those who run rogue and get physical when dealing with a frustrating situation.

On a side note, I wouldn't want to be Patriots P.R. man, Stacey James right about now.