Story Archive

Samaritan Beware

“You’re being detained because you were a witness to a vehicle where someone died in an accident.” That, Benjamin Davis III said, is what a Washington D.C. cop told him when he stopped him. Davis had stopped at the crash site to get a survivor out of a car — “The guy [was] hanging out of the passenger side door,” Davis said. “Unfortunately his friend was crushed.” — and, before leaving, he had told the police what he’d seen and gotten permission to go. Nevertheless, he said, he was kept waiting roughly two hours and interrogated. Police even impounded his car, and Davis said a police supervisor told him it was because he was a witness; he was not issued any citations. But later, police said Davis didn’t have a valid driver’s license. (AC/WJLA Washington D.C.) ...Did they find that excuse before or after the abuse?