For one year, the Dayton Daily News has followed the case of a man who recorded his traffic stop in Dayton then shared it on social media. This newspaper pursued public records of the investigation and its aftermath for months.
A year after a Dayton native was followed by a police officer because he made “direct eye contact,” the driver said the traffic stop — a video of which went viral — was racially motivated, but he hasn’t file a lawsuit. The officer was cleared of any wrongdoing.
> VIDEO: Driver records police interaction
“You find cases where people were stopped for eye contact and cases where people were suspicious for not giving eye contact,” 26-year-old John Felton of Detroit said. “Everything is so subjective with the laws and things that they have like that, so they can use little things like that to get away with it.”
> RELATED: Traffic stops a common police tactic
Driving an Infiniti with just a rear Michigan license plate, Felton, who is black, was pulled over Aug. 14, 2015, for not signalling 100 feet prior to a turn by Dayton police officer Randy Betsinger, who is white.
Felton recorded the interaction on his cell phone, and the video was shared widely online. Felton received a warning, but he wanted Betsinger to explain why the officer followed him for 1.5 miles. Betsinger said it was because Felton made “direct eye contact” with him as they passed each other.
Internal affairs report
“There were no violations of departmental policies or procedures,” said a 97-page Dayton Police Department Professional Standards Bureau investigation obtained by this news organization. “The allegations of racial profiling, harassment and civil rights violations are unfounded.”
Betsinger, who was working a two-day special aggressive traffic enforcement detail at the time of the stop, told internal investigators that he first noticed Felton’s car had no front license plate and then followed him after the eye contact.
“It was suspicious behavior for me. I’ve had multiple cars before from making eye contact after looking at myself, actually flee a traffic stop,” Betsinger told investigators on Oct. 13, 2015. “I was looking for an infraction to pull him over. Because I observed he had Michigan plates.”
Betsinger, who started as an officer in 2014, also said he was going to explain the Safe Communities by Aggressive Traffic Enforcement (SCATE) detail in which police targeted certain areas for aggressive enforcement. Four of the 15 stops Betsinger and fellow officer Jamie Luckoski made that night were for signal violations. The pair issued 11 warnings.
“I knew I had a legal reason to stop him for the 100 feet prior,” Betsinger said, denying he profiled Felton in any way. “I was trying to inform him of that and the eye contact and the detail that we were on. But I was not able to do so because of his interrupting me.”
The internal investigation was dated Feb. 18, 2016, but not received by this news organization until more than five months later. Dayton police declined to comment for this article.
Controversy surrounded apology
Felton said he left filing a lawsuit up to his attorney, Byron Potts, and that he hadn’t spoken to Potts since October or November 2015. A scheduled mediation never took place.
A person in Potts’ office said Potts indicated his client decided not to file a lawsuit. Potts did not return a message seeking clarification.
Dayton city leaders issued an apology that stated that though a turn signal violation did occur, the traffic stop video demonstrated a “breakdown in communication” and led to a misperception of the city and its police force.
The apology outraged Dayton Fraternal Order of Police President Michael Galbraith, who said, "This is not bad; it is not racist; it is simply police work."
Betsinger was ordered to have two additional hours of training Sept. 3, 2015. Betsinger previously had been reprimanded for accidents involving cruisers he drove.
Social media and policing
Felton, who works for a mortgage company, said has been back to Dayton only twice since the incident and that he now drives a Ford.
He said Betsinger’s refresher course was inadequate.
“In order to change a culture, two hours is not enough,” Felton said. “The video was just to bring awareness that everything that we basically say doesn’t happen any more actually does, if it’s caught on camera. Before technology, we didn’t really see it.”
Felton said other high-profile police-community incidents on video keep proving his point.
“Now you have social media where the people can actually put out their own forms of media to a different platform other than just a TV outlet,” Felton said. “That brings insight into what goes on everywhere.”
Police-community relations
The Dayton police internal report said the SCATE effort was based in places with many crashes or illegal activity.
Felton said traffic enforcement tactics that like are like drunk-driving checks and pulling over old cars because they may not have insurance — all reasons to check the passengers for active warrants.
“It still disproportionately attacks a certain group of people,” Felton said. “They can say what they want, but those same things happen in affluent areas.”
Dayton police Lt. Kimberley Hill wrote that news articles, Felton’s written statements, Felton’s video, the officers’ in-car camera and interviews were used to compile the internal report.
“Citizens are encouraged and expected to scrutinize interactions with police,” Hill wrote in the report’s conclusion. “However, it is also reasonable to expect that not every word an officer speaks will be taken literally… . The direct eye contact was not the purpose of the stop, although Officer Betsinger stated this.”
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