Shawn Bresnahan, a resident and local mechanic in Greenbrier, Arkansas, had his world turned upside down after taking his newly-repaired car for a test drive. Due to a clerical error, Bresnahan had a suspended license at the time. Local cops were all too quick to take advantage of this by confronting and arresting Bresnahan on his own driveway. Not satisfied with publicly humiliating Bresnahan and placing him in handcuffs, the police also impounded Bresnahan’s $30,000 vehicle, a decision which Bresnahan says has cost him dearly. Stephen Janis and Taya Graham of the Police Accountability Report investigate the case as an illustrative example of the lack of accountability in small town police departments.
Production: Stephen Janis, Taya Graham
Post-Production: Stephen Janis, Adam Coley
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Taya Graham:
Hello, my name is Taya Graham and welcome to the Police Accountability Report. As I always make clear, this show has a single purpose: holding the politically powerful institution of policing accountable. And to do so, we don’t just focus on the bad behavior of individual cops. Instead, we examine the system that makes bad policing possible, and today we will achieve that goal by showing you this video of a police officer arresting a man for being parked in his own driveway. But it’s the consequences of that action, and how it has turned the life of a person who was arrested, upside down, that we will be unpacking for you today.
But before we get started, I want you watching to know that if you have video evidence of police misconduct, please email it to us privately at PAR@therealnews.com or reach out to me on Facebook or Twitter @tayasbaltimore and we might be able to investigate for you, and please like share and comment on our videos. It helps us get the word out and it can even help our guests. And of course I read your comments and appreciate them. You see those little hearts I give out down there, and I’ve even started doing a comment of the week to show you just how much I appreciate your thoughts and to show what a great community we have. And we do have a Patreon called Accountability Reports, so if you feel inspired to donate, please do. We don’t run ads or take corporate dollars, so anything you can spare is truly appreciated.
All right, we’ve gotten that out of the way. Now, as we always make clear on the show, there are aspects of policing that don’t get the attention they deserve. Generally speaking, bad arrests, excessive force, and downright unconstitutional tactics often dominate the discussion over American law enforcement. But perhaps we need to look elsewhere if we really want to understand what’s going on because there are other facets of police malfeasance that are often overlooked and need more attention.
The imperative that often informs the bad decisions that we see recorded on cell phones and posted on YouTube and cop watcher videos across the country, questionable motivations, so to speak, that need to be fully grasped so that we can understand and advocate for the most effective way to push for real change. And no encounter with police typifies what I’m talking about more than the video I’m showing you now. It’s a prolonged detention by police of a man in his own driveway, that has so many twists and turns that it took some effort to boil it down into a single show. But it’s such a perfect example of the unacknowledged and ulterior motives that drive bad policing we felt we had to unpack it for you in all its bizarre detail.
The story starts in Greenbriar, Arkansas, in a driveway no less. That’s where Shawn Bresnahan had just pulled into his home, parked his car, and was looking under the hood to check his engine. And that’s when police arrived almost immediately, and began making accusations. Take a look.
Speaker 2:
Police department.
Shawn Bresnahan:
How you doing?
Speaker 2:
I’m good. Reason I stopped is your tag.
Shawn Bresnahan:
Yeah, I got to get them took care of. I just got it running last night.
Speaker 2:
Okay.
Shawn Bresnahan:
It’s been sitting parked for-
Speaker 15:
I’m going to be at Walmart for a minute.
Speaker 2:
I got you. You got your driver’s license with you?
Shawn Bresnahan:
I don’t. I don’t have it on me.
Speaker 15:
10-4.
Speaker 2:
Do you have a driver’s license?
Shawn Bresnahan:
I do.
Speaker 2:
Okay. What’s your name?
Shawn Bresnahan:
Shawn Bresnahan.
Speaker 2:
All right. You want to step back here with me, let me get your name stuff? See what’s going on with it. What’s been going on with it.
Speaker 15:
PD-2, 700 status.
Speaker 2:
All right, Shawn, put your phone down. I’m going to detain you for a minute, okay? Until I get all this figured out.
Shawn Bresnahan:
Do what? [inaudible 00:03:30] tomorrow?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, you’re driving on suspended.
Shawn Bresnahan:
That’s why I was wanting to get in my truck, to get the paperwork to show you it’s not suspended.
Speaker 2:
We’ll get to it. Okay?
Shawn Bresnahan:
I mean is there, you got a reason you’re putting me in handcuffs?
Speaker 2:
I’m going to detain you for a minute until I get it all figured out because you’re moving around. You’re ready to go in. You’re wanting to get in the truck.
Shawn Bresnahan:
You asked me to sit down. I sat down. Well actually you asked me to go back out here. I got here and sat down, and I hadn’t moved since.
Speaker 2:
Perfect. I’m going to detain you while I look through my computer.
Shawn Bresnahan:
Happy to work with you, if you’re happy to work with me. Tommy, will you hush please.
Taya Graham:
Now, as Shawn has admitted to us, his license was suspended at the time due to a clerical error, which he will explain later. But it’s worth noting that the moment police arrived, he was not operating the vehicle. Still, police began threatening him with cuffs, arrests, and by cuffing him, characterizing him as dangerous. Just watch.
Speaker 2:
Let’s move over here.
Shawn Bresnahan:
Can you think of a reason why?
Speaker 2:
I’m asking you to move over here.
Shawn Bresnahan:
I understand that, and I’m asking any particular reason why?
Speaker 2:
I’m going to detain you while I do my paperwork and I figure out what’s going on with your license and all that.
Shawn Bresnahan:
I’m not going anywhere. You got my vehicles blocked in.
Speaker 2:
I don’t have any vehicles blocked in.
Shawn Bresnahan:
Only keys I have on me right now is the Mustang.
Speaker 2:
What’s going on. I’m going to put them in front of you, okay?
Shawn Bresnahan:
Okay.
Speaker 2:
While we look at the stuff. You’ve been over here, you’ve been in front of your car, trying to open the hood, moving all the place. I need to focus on what’s going on here to decide whether you stay here or whether you go with me. If you don’t allow me to do that, then we’re going to stand here and talk, okay?
Shawn Bresnahan:
I’m not trying to be difficult, I just, I’m kind of opposed to being put in handcuffs like I’ve done something wrong.
Speaker 2:
You’ve not done anything wrong. I’m detaining you to keep you over here where I can keep an eye on you.
Shawn Bresnahan:
I’ll give you my word. I’ll stay right here, but I don’t want be put in handcuffs if at all possible. I’m sure you can understand.
Speaker 2:
I can understand it a certain point, but right now you’re interfering with my operation and my investigation here, because you won’t comply with what I’m asking you to do.
Shawn Bresnahan:
I’m trying to comply, but I don’t feel the need to be put in handcuffs, that’s being put under arrest.
Speaker 2:
No, it’s not. It’s being detained, and that’s what I told you.
Shawn Bresnahan:
Okay. That’s detained, is an arrest.
Speaker 2:
No, it’s not. Apprehension is arrest.
Shawn Bresnahan:
Not being able to leave of your own free will is arrest.
Speaker 2:
You’re being detained until I finish my investigation. That doesn’t mean you’re under arrest.
Taya Graham:
Now, one thing you may notice, as I did, was how polite and compliant Shawn was as this officer came onto his property, cuffed him, and wouldn’t even let him access his phone. Just watch, and think to yourself how calm you would be after 50 minutes of being cuffed and investigated on your own property in front of your neighbors.
Speaker 2:
You have broke the law.
Shawn Bresnahan:
What law have I broken?
Speaker 2:
Driving on suspended.
Shawn Bresnahan:
I have the paperwork to show otherwise.
Speaker 2:
Okay, well it’s not showing that in my truck.
Shawn Bresnahan:
I understand that. I have paperwork from the court that shows otherwise.
Speaker 2:
You have it on your person?
Shawn Bresnahan:
No sir, it’s in my truck.
Speaker 2:
Was it in the car that you were driving?
Shawn Bresnahan:
No, sir. It’s in my truck.
Speaker 2:
Okay, so no different than you being on the highway. You wouldn’t have it with you, correct?
Shawn Bresnahan:
That may be true. That may be true but it is different because it’s here. I’m here, I have it on me.
Speaker 2:
No, you don’t have it on you.
Shawn Bresnahan:
It’s on this property. I would assume it was in my access.
Speaker 2:
That’s what the problem is, you’re assuming.
Shawn Bresnahan:
Okay. Well I know for a fact I have the paperwork. It’s 25-feet away from me. I can show you that real quick and clear this all up. I was on my own property when you pulled up behind me, and now you’re wanting to put me in handcuffs.
Speaker 2:
You were driving down the highway, driving on suspended.
Shawn Bresnahan:
I have the paperwork to show my license is not suspended. It was suspended in error.
Speaker 2:
Suspended in error?
Shawn Bresnahan:
Yes, sir.
Speaker 2:
Okay.
Shawn Bresnahan:
It’d be nice not to be put in handcuffs.
Speaker 2:
I asked you, I was going to detain you, and you chose not to. So now you’re interfering with governmental operations. Go one of two ways, brother. You can go to jail or you can be detained for a few minutes and let me figure it out.
Shawn Bresnahan:
If you need to detain me, that’s what you need to do.
Speaker 2:
Okay. I mean that’s the two options you got.
Shawn Bresnahan:
Okay.
Speaker 2:
You want to be detained for just a few minutes and come over here and let me deal with this and we can figure it out?
Shawn Bresnahan:
Why do I need to come over there? I’m not trying to-
Speaker 2:
So that I can ask you questions at the same time. I can’t ask you questions walking up and down the-
Shawn Bresnahan:
Yes, sir. I understand. That’s why I sat down, that way you could ask me questions.
Speaker 2:
Right. I’m not going to yell from my truck over here because you’re sitting at your house. I’m going to detain you, and I’m going to put you over here where I can talk to you. Okay?
Taya Graham:
Now, as you will hear soon, Shawn admits that he is far from perfect. In fact, he has had a few run-ins with the law from traffic violations, that he again will explain later. And according to Greenbrier police dispatch in this video, his last speeding ticket was 2013, but suffice it to say, he’s hardly the menace to society that requires a visit from multiple cops who, as you can see, are less than sympathetic. Take a look.
Shawn Bresnahan:
My car right now.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, here. I’m not arguing with you here. I’m going to explain your citations to you, unless you want to go to jail and bond on them?
Shawn Bresnahan:
I don’t, but I don’t want my car towed either. That’s still on my property.
Speaker 2:
I don’t want you driving on highway.
Shawn Bresnahan:
I’m not going to drive it. I have other vehicles I can drive, but I apparently have driving suspended license or something, so I’m not going to drive anyway. But you’re not taking my property from my property. If we were out on the street, you would’ve the absolute right to tow it.
Speaker 2:
I still have the right to tow it.
Shawn Bresnahan:
I’ve been through this. Not from private property, sir.
Speaker 2:
Okay. You’re driving it on city street, which is violation when you’re driving on suspended, and I’m taking the vehicle because you have no insurance. I just sat there and watched you drive up Wilson Farm, you drove all the way around Tyler. You come right down through your own Lender. I’m taking the car. Apparently you don’t understand what we can see, because you do have a problem with driving on suspended and you do have a problem with registering your vehicle.
Shawn Bresnahan:
And I do have a [inaudible 00:09:32].
Speaker 2:
Very many times, okay.
Shawn Bresnahan:
And I’ve got them all dismissed, as I’ve shown you.
Speaker 2:
Okay. I don’t know if you got them dismissed or not.
Shawn Bresnahan:
The paperwork right there shows it.
Speaker 2:
I got your paperwork, okay.
Shawn Bresnahan:
It’s all right there.
Speaker 2:
I’m still showing that you lack a hundred dollars reinstatement fee.
Shawn Bresnahan:
That was taken out of my taxes, and that one says that the reinstatement fees waived if you look at it.
Speaker 2:
That’s fine. This is not what I go by, sir. I don’t go by your paperwork that you pull out of your truck that’s sitting in your yard.
Shawn Bresnahan:
That’s paperwork from the court with a seal.
Speaker 2:
I apologize, okay. I don’t care what it is. That’s not what I can go by today, okay? I’m going by my system that I looked at, and also our dispatcher looked at it as well to make sure I wasn’t missing something.
Taya Graham:
Now this is the point where the idea about the underlying imperative of policing comes into play. The point of the story where we have to refer back to the whole idea we raised at the beginning of the show, about what drives bad policing. Because cops at this point, along with cuffing and detaining Shawn, decide to impound his car. That’s right. Even though he was upfront about the problems with his registration and had the paperwork to prove it, the police decided to take his property.
Now it’s worth noting that this car was pretty much Shawn’s economic lifeblood and his pride and joy. It was a sentimental possession he had worked tirelessly to perfect, but now, without due process, this property was seized, and as a result his life was thrown into chaos. Let’s watch.
Speaker 15:
28-03.
Speaker 2:
I’m fixing to call chief right now. Hey Shawn, you don’t want to give him the key to pull it up here? And you’re recording this too, Lacey?
Lacey:
Yep.
Speaker 2:
Awesome.
Lacey:
I am.
Speaker 2:
Because then we’ll subpoena your phone and it’ll be gone for a while. Got a piece of rock?
Speaker 9:
I was going to try to get that myself from behind the wheel.
Taya Graham:
But I think understandably, the moment that Shawn gets concerned is when the officer insists on IDing his wife, or to get herself indoors. Just take a listen.
Speaker 2:
Do you need to go inside ma’am?
Lacey:
No.
Speaker 2:
Okay. You got your driver’s license with you?
Lacey:
Huh?
Speaker 2:
You got your driver’s license with you? You want to include yourself in my investigation, so I need you to ID you. I need your driver’s license.
Shawn Bresnahan:
She didn’t put herself in your investigation, she lives here.
Speaker 2:
She just said she didn’t want to go inside, so she’s involving herself here. Okay. I’m not arguing. Need your driver’s license.
Lacey:
This is my house.
Speaker 2:
I understand.
Lacey:
And I wasn’t doing anything. You didn’t pull me over.
Speaker 2:
Ma’am, this is my traffic stop. You want to involve yourself with the person that I’m talking to, and I asked you if you need to go in the house, and you said no, you’re going to stay outside. So you’re involving yourself in my investigation. So I need to identify who you are.
Lacey:
I’m not involving myself in your investigation.
Speaker 2:
Okay. Then have your way inside.
Lacey:
You can’t tell me I have to go inside-
Speaker 2:
Then ID yourself.
Lacey:
This is my house.
Speaker 2:
One of the two. One of the two.
Lacey:
This is my house and my property. I can stand on my property-
Speaker 2:
You’re correct.
Lacey:
Without you harassing me.
Speaker 2:
I’m not harassing.
Lacey:
But you are.
Speaker 2:
You’re involving in my traffic stop.
Lacey:
Because I told-
Speaker 2:
Did you not talk to him? Did you talk to this gentleman right here?
Lacey:
Yes. He asked me for a cigarette.
Speaker 2:
Okay, then. You’re involving yourself.
Lacey:
That’s my husband. This is my property.
Speaker 2:
All you got to do is identify yourself.
Lacey:
But I don’t have to. You can’t force me to do anything on my property.
Speaker 2:
[inaudible 00:12:57] I’m sorry, I’m sorry. You know my job better than me. So you tell me what I need to do.
Speaker 15:
Over here in front of the school. 25.
Lacey:
I’ll step off of my property.
Shawn Bresnahan:
Don’t step off the property.
Speaker 2:
I’m not asking you to go anywhere.
Lacey:
I’m going to get Jerry.
Speaker 2:
Go get Jerry, whoever Jerry is. Then he will be identified as well. If you’re going to include yourself in my traffic stop-
Lacey:
I didn’t include myself in your-
Speaker 2:
Are you talking to the person I’ve got in handcuffs, then you included yourself. I do not know who he is. I do not know your relationship. Okay? Do you want to include yourself or do you not?
Shawn Bresnahan:
Officer Woody knows who we are.
Lacey:
Officer Woody does know.
Speaker 2:
That’s fine. He did not make the traffic stop, I did. Okay.
Lacey:
Okay. But you-
Speaker 2:
Would you like to go-
Lacey:
Can’t harass me on my property.
Speaker 2:
What am I harassing you about?
Lacey:
Trying to say I have to give you my driver’s license. You did not pull me over. I’m not in trouble for anything, so I do not have to give you my license.
Speaker 2:
You are correct. You’re not in trouble for anything just yet, but if you keep interfering with my investigation, you’re going to go to jail.
Lacey:
I didn’t interfere with anything.
Speaker 2:
Okay, then identify yourself or go in the house. One of the two. I’m not playing y’all’s bullshit game, Shawn.
Taya Graham:
But that’s not where this story ends, not hardly. That’s because Shawn and his wife Lacey worked to get the car back. They learned that there was more behind this police visit than a couple of errant traffic violations. Admissions by authorities involved in the seizure captured on tape, that we’ll be sharing with you shortly, and that speaks volumes about what was going on behind the scenes, which in part led to his car being towed away.
But before we get to that, I’m joined by my reporting partner, Stephen Janice, who’s been reaching out to police and looking at the evidence. Stephen, thank you so much for joining me.
Stephen Janis:
Taya, thanks having me. I appreciate it.
Taya Graham:
So Stephen, what are police saying about Shawn’s detainment and the reason police visited his home?
Stephen Janis:
Well, I reached out to him via their Facebook page with some very specific questions, mostly why were they able to impound the vehicle that was parked on his own property and his own driveway? I haven’t heard back yet, but I’m going to keep working on this because I really want to get answers to this question. It seems to me problematic, especially after I looked at the law, and something that needs to be answered quickly.
Taya Graham:
So how are they justifying taking his car, and what does the law actually say about this?
Stephen Janis:
Well, first of all, you can’t seize something without illicit contraband in it, or being a conveyance of illicit contraband, or counterfeit contraband. You can’t just seize a vehicle. Now you can take a vehicle, impound a vehicle when someone’s driving without insurance, but he wasn’t driving at the time. It wasn’t on the road. So really, this is one of those gray areas that I think is really, really problematic, and shows that police have way too much power to take property that doesn’t belong to them.
Taya Graham:
So Stephen, we have talked a lot about civil asset forfeiture before. Do you think this is part of a larger problem of police taking people’s property?
Stephen Janis:
Well, when I was a reporter in Baltimore, Taya, I used to spend a lot of time at the city impound lot where a lot of these cards would show up when police would seize them. And many times they were a result of illegal arrests, where they would just take someone’s car. But what I think they do here in Arkansas, that we’re going to keep investigating, is I think they start piling up fees, so it becomes sort of a defacto seizure without really the due process of law. They just pile the fees and say, “Hey, can you pay a thousand dollars to get your car back?” A lot of people can’t do that, so they just sell it. They have the right to actually sell it if they put a lot of fees on your car, and I think it really violates the spirit and the letter of the law, and that’s why we’re going to keep investigating this, and that’s why we have the whole police accountable for this type of behavior.
Taya Graham:
And now to dig into the details about the ongoing consequences from his arrest, and the subsequent pushback from law enforcement, and what he uncovered about their motivations and questionable behavior, I’m joined by Shawn Bresnahan. Shawn, thank you so much for joining me.
Shawn Bresnahan:
Thank you for having me. I really do appreciate it.
Taya Graham:
So, just tell me what we see when the officer first approaches you. What were you doing and what does he say?
Shawn Bresnahan:
When he first approached me, I was underneath the hood of the car unhooking the electrical connection to the fan. I had just gotten the car running after eight months of sitting. I went to take it for a quick shakedown run and make sure everything was good to go, and I was going to get everything up to date on it, and I just wanted make sure it was roadworthy first. There was no sense in doing it otherwise.
He walks up and says, “I’m Officer Amberton with the Greenbrier Police Department, and so the reason I stopped you”, I was a little confused at that point, because I was already stopped and out of my car, I was in my driveway. He said, “What’s going on with the car?” I said, “I just got it running.” Gave him basically, same thing I just said, and he goes, “Well, you got a driver’s license?” I said, “Yes sir.” Do you have it on you? I don’t have it on me. I did have it in my pocket but didn’t feel like giving it to him necessarily at that point in time.
So I gave him my name and my birthdate, which is what I was required to do. I went to go into my house and get the keys to my truck, that way I could give him the paperwork that was going to clear up what he was fixing to see on his computer. Because I had a feeling that it was going to show license suspended, which it was suspended previously, in error, due to missing a court date that my lawyer at the time didn’t advise me of. Got all that squared away, about three weeks before all this happened. I had the paperwork in my truck to prove that it was all taken care of, and he goes, “Oh, you can’t go in your house without me”, da-da-da, “It’s for my safety and yours.” And I was, again, a little confused because I was at my house. This was something that would’ve been normal for me.
Taya Graham:
So why do you think the officer became more aggressive, and how did this escalate to having your car impounded? I mean, from what I read, a suspended license might be a fine or even jail time, but not property confiscated.
Shawn Bresnahan:
I was sitting there playing poker on my phone. About four or five minutes later, he comes over and says, “All right, you need to stand up. I’m detaining you. I need to put you in handcuffs.” I’m absolutely confused at this point. I’ve never had something like this escalate to that, and I’ve been stopped plenty of times in my life, just like everybody else. In my opinion, it escalated to the point of that purely because I challenged his authority. I was calling him on things that I didn’t think were right, such as being put in handcuffs and made it stand out in the middle of my driveway next to his truck for about 45 minutes. I had neighbors that were clients of my wife, that called my neighbors and asked them if I was being arrested for domestic violence or something like that. Why that was their assumption, that’s anybody’s guess.
I’ve never had a violent anything on my record, ever. I try and get along with everybody and treat everybody as good as I can. I can thank my mom for that because she made sure I knew how to treat people. As far as the reason the officer escalated, I was just as confused as anybody else watching the video. He even states on there that I wasn’t being combative. I wasn’t a flight risk. He didn’t think I was going to run. I told him I’d sit right where I was and be happy to answer any questions he had for me, and I would’ve done so up to a certain point.
Most of the time, and I have been pulled over for driving on a suspend license. That’s kind of how this whole thing got started, because my license getting suspended and I got pulled over and arrested on the failure to appear warrant in Mountain Home months before. That got cleared up and that all got dismissed. I tried to show him the paperwork to show all of that, that was dismissed, that the license was suspended in error, that had been reinstated, and that the reinstatement fee had been waived. And he wasn’t interested in seeing that. As you can see in the video, I’ve mentioned numerous times we could have cleared that up right there and it would’ve ended the investigation, as far as I can understand or I’m concerned. I mean, I don’t see what all there was to investigate.
Taya Graham:
Now I think things take a real turn when your wife arrives. Let’s take a moment to hear how the officer spoke to your wife.
Speaker 2:
I do not know who he is. I do not know your relationship. Okay. Do you want to include yourself or do you not?
Shawn Bresnahan:
Officer Woody knows who we are.
Lacey:
Officer Woody does know.
Speaker 2:
That’s fine. He did not make the traffic stop. I did. Okay?
Lacey:
Okay, but you can’t harass me on my property.
Speaker 2:
Would you like to go… What am I harassing you about?
Lacey:
Trying to say I have to give you my driver’s license. You did not pull me over. I’m not in trouble for anything, so I do not have to give you my license.
Speaker 2:
You are correct. You’re not in trouble for anything just yet, but if you keep interfering with my investigation, you’re going to go to jail.
Shawn Bresnahan:
I was very surprised. When she pulled in, she started talking to the second officer that was come on scene, officer Woody, he was the school resource officer and knew our daughter very well. Had actually helped her get out through some bullying situations, and kind of kept a check on her when she was still in school. He was being courteous and talking with her, and I’ve been standing there for about 20 minutes or so at this point, in handcuffs, which is already well past what’s reasonable for a stop anyway. Reasonable stop according to Arkansas is 15 to 17 minutes, give or take. I asked her for a cigarette because I’ve been sitting there for a while. I was kind of a little anxious because of being in handcuffs and not really sure what’s going on, and why it’s escalated at this point, and I wanted to ask Officer Amberton, the one that had initiated this whole deal, if it would be okay with him if I smoked a cigarette.
I was trying to be courteous, I didn’t need his permission. According to him, I was only being detained, not under arrest, and that’s when he got out of the truck and he said, “No, you can’t smoke a cigarette.” So I said, okay, and didn’t argue with him a bit about it. It wasn’t worth the fight. He came around and asked her for her driver’s license and that she needed to identify herself because she was interfering with his investigation, and that’s where me and her both kind of bristled up a little bit and said, “No, she’s not interfering with any investigation. I spoke to her and asked her if I could have a cigarette and then I asked you if it’d be okay with you. That’s on me.” Her arriving home in no way, shape or form was her becoming part of his investigation or interfering with his investigation.
We both told him, “No, this is her property. She can be where she wants. She doesn’t have to go inside and you can’t force her to.” At that point, I told her to get her phone out and start videoing this because they hadn’t let me have my phone up until just minutes before that, and I couldn’t get on it to… They didn’t want me text messaging anybody. They didn’t want me opening up any apps, anything like that. Again, for officer safety, they said.
Taya Graham:
You admit there are some precautions you could have taken to perhaps prevent this from happening, but it seems to me the punishment didn’t really fit the crime. But you admit there were things you could have done differently.
Shawn Bresnahan:
No proof of insurance, and I told them the car was on storage status with the insurance company. In my haste to run down to the gas station back, didn’t think to call the insurance company and sit on the phone with them for 20 minutes, and all that stuff, to get it switched over. A minor oversight on my part, yes. I’m not infallible, I’m human. I make errors in judgment all the time, just like everybody else. Did that amount to something that could have hurt somebody, or equal to the onsite punishment that he dealt out? No, I don’t believe so.
My registration sticker, the year tab had gotten blown off with a pressure washer when I washed my car, and I hadn’t gotten a new one and hadn’t gotten it renewed, because like I said, the car was down for eight months from August of ’22 until that day, I had not driven the car aside from moving it in the driveway once. I finally got it running, I decided to take it a mile down the road. Was that an error in judgment on my part? Probably so.
I probably should have waited until I had everything just a-okay, legal beagle. But as a mechanic, I’ve taken everything I’ve ever done, as soon as I get done repairing a car, I go test drive it to make sure everything is good to go, all the repairs are good. I’ve spent countless thousands of dollars building this car. It’s actually something I built with my daughter, had built a pretty strong bond with me and her, and it got me to a point in life that I was always trying to get to, which was to be the car guy, the guy that all the little kids run up to your car and they want to give you a high five, and all that kind of stuff because they’re excited to see the car. And as adults, and especially car guys, we live for that.
Taya Graham:
So you told me this car was worth much more than the value of around $15,000 I found listed online. Why was this car worth more and why did it have so much sentimental value?
Shawn Bresnahan:
After my first year of having the shop open, I bought this car. I originally bought it as something to travel in, to go to different trade shows and stuff like that. And like every other car guy on the planet, I swore I was going to keep it stock and I did for about a month. About this time, me and my daughter had really started hanging out and building a bond. She’s actually my stepdaughter, but shh, don’t tell her. Now, I’ve been in her life since she was a year and a half old, and I’m all she knows and she’s all I know.
I started taking her to school in it and having her come out there and work on it with me, and stuff like that. I’ve actually got a picture of her laying up underneath the car with me while I was working on setting the suspension up. And she’s laying under there, and I’m showing her different things and trying to teach her a little bit of it. Now I know she doesn’t have much interest in it and that’s fine, but she had interest in being out there with me. And that right there, I couldn’t put a price tag on if I wanted to. I could give you all the receipts that I put into that car. I put well over 20 to $25,000 of my own money into that car on top of buying it. I’m so beside myself that it’s gone, and the fact that they sold it to a junkyard of all places, for $2,600.
Taya Graham:
There was something interesting that was said in the conversation your wife had with a person who runs the tow company and junkyard. I’m going to play some of it, and then I’m going to have you tell me a little bit more about what your wife was told.
Speaker 17:
But from what I heard, and this is just rumor, but from what I heard that your husband was being a smartass asshole, or they wouldn’t even have towed the car. They said they were just going ticket it originally, but your husband kept going off on them is what I-
Shawn Bresnahan:
I imagine I feel like anybody would. And we expect those officers and hold them to the standard of being able to control those feelings of getting their feelings hurt or their ego bruised, or something like that. I’ve seen people be way, way more belligerent to officers and not get that kind of a deal happen to them. The problem was I ruffled his feathers and challenged his authority, and he wanted to make sure to put me in my place and show me who his boss. And I have a problem with that because he is not my boss. For all intents and purposes, he works for us. His job is to be there to protect us and protect our property, not take it from us. If I remember correctly, that’s literally in their oath that each officer has to swear to when they become an officer, and it’s their code of ethics.
And in that situation, he exercised no ethical judgment of any kind that I could see. The day that it got taken, they told me it was going to be $275 to get the car back out of impound, which I told them before they even left with the car, I don’t have that. I spent my last few bucks when I went down to the gas station and bought that pack of smokes. I had just, not even a week before, paid over a thousand dollars on an overdue electric bill just to keep the lights on, and it was everything I could do to scrape that up. Now that’s part of the reason I was actually getting that car running because it’s cheaper to drive than my truck. My truck gets 11 miles to the gallon, it hits the pocketbook pretty hard. Most of the time I stay stationary because I can’t afford to drive around.
The first day it was $275 off the top to take the car from my house to the impound lot, which is mile and a half, two miles maybe, on something that I protested I did not want in any way, shape or form, and I made that abundantly clear, or at least as clear as I could without getting out of line. Notice that said, final notice, which is the first notice we’d received, that said the car would be auctioned off after 45 days if the sum weren’t paid.
At that point, the bill was $1,587 or something like that, and they told us flat out, “You’re past the time. We’re not going to take the money even if you had everything in full.” The same day that I filed the lawsuit, they sold the car for $2,600, which is a far cry from what the car was worth, let alone what I had in it. I actually had found a picture of my family that I’d had in the car, that was my mom, my grandparents, and me as a kid. I was probably 11 years old or so. I’m the only one left alive in that picture. I’m standing on my own on this one. I don’t have any backup to help me out. I don’t have a safety net if I fall. I’m doing this all on my own, and it’s a little scary at times.
Taya Graham:
I hate to get really personal, but what’s your record that they think they need to take your car away? Why do they think you might be a danger on the road? You don’t have any DUIs. I think you had a careless driving ticket in 2022, and I think you told me that this was dismissed and there was an error, and you got a failure to appear because of it, so it was actually some sort of clerical error. Am I understanding this correctly?
Shawn Bresnahan:
If you listen to the video when he speaks to the dispatcher, that’s also his wife, it states the only thing on my record was a speeding ticket back in 2013. The lawyer didn’t send me the notice. My lawyer nor the clerk at the court, both failed to send me a notice of the new trial date, which had been moved from November 2nd to December 16th. And it’s a two and a half hour drive up there each time I had to go up there on all this stuff. And I’ve had to go up multiple times on it, to where it probably would’ve just been cheaper to pay him the money for the ticket. But again, if I’m not guilty, I’m not guilty, and I’m going to stand my ground. I don’t believe in just going, “Oh, well, it’s just cheaper to go ahead and say I’m guilty and not be.” I can’t do that. I’m not built that way.
Taya Graham:
So, how much has this ordeal really cost you? I mean financially or psychologically or emotionally, how has this impacted you?
Shawn Bresnahan:
Financially, I mean the value of the car, obviously. The back and forth from Greenbriar to Mountain Home, especially not being able to be safe in my home right now with police. Whenever I’m there, they’re patrolling multiple times a day. They slow down and stare coming by my house, and they’ll even post up at all the roads that lead into where my house is at just trying to catch me doing something wrong, or driving or something else. And it’s absurd.
Honestly, I don’t know that I could put a number on it. As far as emotionally, I found out my car was gone on my birthday. My mom passed away seven, let’s see, eight days after my birthday back in 2017. So I’m always kind of in a lull around my birthday anyway, but to get the news that my car was gone, because I didn’t know where it was, I just knew it was sold. I didn’t know who bought it, where it was, what happened to it, if I was ever going to see it again. That was the straw that was going to break my back. It is what it is. I’ve just got to keep going, and hopefully I can get this wrong righted. But I wish I could put a dollar figure on it, I just can’t.
Taya Graham:
Now, as our investigation into Shawn’s prolonged and painful struggle with the Greenbrier Police Department reveals, there is more to covering policing than simply unpacking a few aspects of a bad arrest. What I mean, is a troubling video and a few charging docs are not the sum total of what we do on this show, or why we try to hold police accountable at all. That’s because what’s often lost in the recounting of bad policing, or an imbalance criminal justice system, is an idea that seems to be last on the list for people who have constructed our massive law enforcement industrial complex, a concept that never seems to enter the calculus of the people who make the decisions that put men like Shawn into the crosshairs of overaggressive cops, namely our humanity, and in this case Shawn’s humanity. I mean, oddly, when our constitution was written, the idea was at the forefront of his conception. Remember these phrases, “All of us are created equal. We have the right to pursue happiness”, or the idea that protecting the innocent was more important than punishing the guilty.
Well, where are those ideas now? What happened to the notion that somewhere and somehow, our humanity cannot be trumped by the imperatives of power. Who decided that our dreams and our hopes and our desires for a better life can be subsumed by overbearing governance? I mean, in some ways that nearly 240-year-old document has some pretty radical ideas when you examine it in the light of how we are living right now. Even if you take into account all of Shawn’s admitted flaws, and all of the reasons that law enforcement has been empowered to take advantage of them, we are losing something if the system we created simply negates the fact that part of being human is to be flawed. And if our current form of governance has been construed around the idea to essentially monetize those flaws, then we have, in a sense, built a monstrosity that is ill-equipped to fulfill the other life-affirming concepts embedded in our constitution, like the pursuit of happiness.
I mean, how can we rightly claim to have a government by consent of the people, if the essence of those people have been wiped away by a system predicated upon cruelty? But wait, perhaps I’ve judged too quickly. Maybe my criticism is premature because I do know one entity in our society that our current government treats with all the warmth and benevolence one would hope for and expect, an institution our political leaders seem to behold with both reverence and care, corporations.
Yes, that’s right. The non-human legal entities that pay less taxes, can wield unlimited power over our elections, and buy influence and access to government that, I am sorry to say, is not available to me or to the people watching this show right now. I mean as our five-year investigation into tax breaks for corporate developers here in Baltimore revealed, filthy rich landowners pay less in property taxes than poor grandmothers on fixed incomes. All thanks to generosity afforded to corporations by our local elected officials. But of course, I can hear some of the naysayers now, “Taya, corporations are job creators. Companies create wealth, developers build things, so why shouldn’t they receive special treatment? I mean, corporations are the drivers of our economy, and without them we’d be lost.”
Well, okay, let’s take your point at face value and do a little comparison. Let’s see how the idea works when we examine it in the context of a real life test case. To do so, we will compare and contrast how the law treated Shawn for his alleged crimes, versus the actual crimes of a corporation, a little trial so to speak, with a bit of cross-examination.
Now our first defendant is Shawn, the hardworking family man trying to scratch out a living while maintaining his prized possession a car. Shawn has made a few mistakes. His license lapsed in error, but he did have the paperwork to prove it should be instated, and his car insurance was the low-mileage storage insurance. But after all, the car hadn’t moved for eight months, but he was at the time, making the effort to correct the situation and comply with the law. And what happened to Shawn, he was cuffed, effectively arrested, humiliated, lost his car, and in the process, the only real property he had that might have rescued him from the economic struggles he was facing at the time. His life was turned upside down, his property was seized, and his entire livelihood imperiled for failing to file paperwork.
Now let’s consider our second defendant, the corporate giant Amazon. On May 8th of this year, an Amazon warehouse worker named Caes Gruesbeck, age 20, was trying to clear an obstruction on a conveyor belt, when an elevator essentially malfunctioned and crushed his head. Gruesbeck died. Investigators found that Amazon had created an unsafe and potentially life-threatening workplace. And let me just quote the report. It found that Amazon had failed to create a work environment, quote, “Free from recognized hazards that were causing, or likely to cause, death.” And the punishment for creating this deadly workplace, $7,000.
I’m not kidding, $7,000 for a young man’s life, for a gruesome death that was preventable, for an intentional decision to put profits over people. Let me repeat. The punishment for a corporate giant that earned $256 billion in net profits was a $7,000 fine. That’s like taking a penny from a hedge fund manager and then giving a fraction of it back, it’s decimal dust. Seriously, a fine of $7,000 for a young man’s life, for a gruesome death that was preventable, for an intentional decision to put profits over people. Please, let me repeat. The punishment for a corporate giant that earned $256 billion in net profits was $7,000. That’s like taking a penny from a hedge fund manager and then giving a fraction of it back, it’s decimal dust, seriously.
So now I’m going to put the case of injustice to you, the jury, the oft-sighted, but mostly forgotten people who make up this nation. I want you to render the verdict on just how much our current state of governance adheres to the principles of its founding. Based upon the evidence I have just presented, how does our current system rightfully punish, and who does it wrongfully serve? Did Shawn deserve to lose his car, his mental health, his personal property, for the alleged transgressions outlined by the police? Did his so-called multiple crimes, require multiple fines and arrest and seizure of his property, and a prolonged court battle with potentially life-altering legal struggles as a consequence?
And what about Amazon? Did the corporate giant that has made Jeff Bezos so rich, he can build a $500 million yacht too big to fit under a bridge and make him rich enough to leave the planet? Did that corporation get its due? Was the negligence that caused the devastating death of a young man, rightfully punished? Was the $7,000 a just fine for a corporation that willfully created a dangerous work environment? Was the penny that officials extracted from Amazon’s proverbial couch cushions commensurate with the crime? I mean, how much is a young man’s life worth when profit’s at stake? How much should a company be asked to pay for snuffing out the life of a young person, lest it interfere with the owner’s right to buy an even bigger boat?
That is the question that lies at the heart of this show. Why week after week, we report on what police do and why we do it, because beneath all of this documentation of questionable policing lies a greater truism that is often forgotten. Does the current rendering of our justice system live up to the ideals this country was founded upon?
Is a system that tries to destroy the life of a man over traffic tickets and barely punishes a corporation that deliberately takes a life, really the system we want? And how can we, the people, if we decided it’s not, hold our government accountable to the concepts on which it was founded? I will leave that verdict up to you, the people, our viewers, but just remember this, justice begins and ends with our humanity. Any system that confers more rights on something that is not human in favor of profit is no justice system at all.
I want to thank Shawn for stepping forward and sharing his experience, and we wish you the best in retrieving your property. Thank you, Shawn. And of course, I have to thank intrepid reporter Stephen Janis for his writing, research, and editing on this piece. Thank you, Stephen.
Stephen Janis:
Taya, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Taya Graham:
And I want to thank friends and mods of the show, Noli D. and Lacey R. for their support, thank you both. And a very special thanks to our accountability report, Patreons. We appreciate you and I look forward to thanking each and every one of you personally in our next livestream, especially Patreon associate producers, Johnny R., David K., Louis P., and super friends, Shane Busta, Pineapple Girl, Chris R, Matter of Rights, and Angela True.
And I want you watching to know that if you have video evidence of police misconduct or brutality, please share it with us and we might be able to investigate for you. Please reach out to us. You can email us tips privately at PAR@therealnews.com and share your evidence of police misconduct. You can also message us at Police Accountability Report on Facebook or Instagram, or at Eyes on Police on Twitter. And of course, you can always message me directly at tayasbaltimore on Twitter and Facebook. And please like and comment. I really do read your comments and appreciate them. And we do have a Patreon link pinned in the comments below for accountability reports, so if you feel inspired to donate, please do. We don’t run ads or take corporate dollars, so anything you can spare is truly appreciated. My name is Taya Graham, and I’m your host of the Police Accountability Report. Please be safe out there.
Speaker 10:
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