If you haven’t already heard about the traffic stop gone wrong in Monongah, you likely will soon. The widely shared video starts near the end of the interaction, which began with a traffic stop about 30 yards away near Shaver Street and Lambert Avenue. The accounts of the initial traffic stop given by Sarah Beth Delloma, the driver of the vehicle, and by Nathan Lanham, now-former Monongah Chief of Police, differ. (Read Erin Cleavenger’s coverage for full details.) Delloma, through her lawyer, said she repeatedly asked to see Lanham’s badge. When he refused, she told him her documents were at her house, hoping to get to a place with witnesses.
The video, which was taken by Delloma’s sister, starts after Delloma stopped her car in the yard of her home. Lanham — dressed in a generic black “police” T-shirt, khaki pants and a gun holstered to his thigh — screams f-word-laced demands that she get out of the car as he pulls at the door handle, even saying “I will f-ing shoot you.” He brandishes his gun, pointing it at Delloma’s head through the car window. At different times, he tells a bystander and Delloma to go f**k themselves. After a while, Lanham goes to his vehicle, comes back with a tool and shatters Delloma’s driver-side window. (Sirens can be heard in the background.) After the window breaks, Delloma exits through the passenger-side door and walks around the back of the car.
In his report, Lanham says Delloma fled on foot and he “escorted” her to the ground. (His report fails to mention that he pulled his gun on Delloma.)
In the video, we can see Delloma standing at the back of her car, peering around the side. Lanham comes up behind her, grabs her with his arm around her upper chest/neck and throws her to the ground, where he places his knee in the small of her back and handcuffs her while she screams for help. At one point, while Delloma is handcuffed on the ground, Lanham starts pulling on her ear — according to Lanham, she was squeezing his thigh — then jumps off her and starts bending back the fingers on one of her hands.
Let’s pretend for a moment that Delloma had, in fact, seen Lanham’s badge. It still would not excuse the way he screamed profanities at her and bystanders and brandished his gun. (Delloma’s neighbor Bill Preston told one news outlet that Lanham pointed his gun at Preston before approaching Delloma’s stopped car.)
We understand officers have stressful jobs, and we acknowledge cars can be used as weapons. Lanham, however, handled this in the worst way possible. Screaming obscenities and waving his gun around did nothing to de-escalate the situation. If Lanham was concerned about the car being used as a weapon, his best option wouldn’t have been to stand next to it, beating on the window, but to retreat to a safe distance until backup arrived. Plus, Lanham did not need to throw Delloma to the ground with that much force; even if she was not complying, once out of the car, she did not pose an immediate threat to his safety.
We can’t ignore, though, Delloma’s account that Lanham refused to show his badge. The shirt he was wearing is easily purchased online, and there have been multiple instances over the years of police imposters pulling over women then assaulting them. As a woman alone in her car, Delloma did the smart thing when faced with a possible predator: She got herself to a place with witnesses and potential help. How many women have been told to, instead of immediately pulling over for flashing lights, put on their hazards and find a well-lit, preferably populated, place to stop?
Everything in this video exemplifies why there’s a growing rift between the public and police. The majority of officers may be wonderful people who follow the rules, but members of the public can’t know who they’re going to get — a good cop, or a “bad apple” like Lanham. And rarely does anything happen to those “bad apples” until videos like this one get out.
