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Posted 10/30/2025

On a day-to-day basis, people across the country interact with law enforcement for various reasons, often starting with a traffic stop or other minor incident.  We recently viewed a couple of instances that made us wonder if police are using different tactics based on a person's race when they encounter them. This article explores how the police engage citizens.  

New York District Attorney Sandra Doorley had a remarkable record as a prosecutor, churning out a 94% conviction rate before becoming the DA. However, in a not-so-stellar moment, Doorley was speeding down a 35-mile-an-hour street doing 55. She was noticed by a police officer, Officer Foley, and he attempted to make a stop, but she never stopped. She drove straight home. The officer approached her in her garage and remained remarkably calm despite enduring verbal abuse. Take a look at the video below.

In a totally separate incident, Erika McGriff was coming to pick up her 9-year-old daughter from school, obviously an elementary school, and allegedly double-parked her car. The officer spotted her and began to demand that she present her identification immediately. Take a look at the video below.

Officer Randy Holton, the policeman who punches Ms. McGriff in the video, is from the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office (JSO), headed by Sheriff T.K. Waters. Waters recently had to defend other officers under his command that broke out a man's window and punched him in the face as he sat in his car... Click Here.

Maybe the JSO should revisit their de-escalation training and possibly have an outside organization provide some oversight. You may not be familiar with HALO laws, but they were laws enacted in Florida to create a 25-foot buffer zone around first responders as they do their job. According to reports, two bystanders at the scene were in violation of this law for attempting to aid Ms. McGriff as she pleaded for her life.

Looking at both videos, neither of the women was completely cooperative. Officer Holton, slamming his car door, approached Ms. McGriff in a hostile manner, though she tried to explain, saying, "I hadn't done anything wrong" and "I was the passenger" in the vehicle. Ms. Doorley admitted to speeding, not stopping her car, which could be evading or resisting arrest in the state of New York, and using her cell phone while driving. The two officers used noticeably distinct tones in their investigations. Officer Holton is speaking more harshly and intensifying the conversation, and be reminded, little kids are all around. Though both women were a tad belligerent, Officer Foley maintained his professionalism when dealing with Ms. Doorley.

There is a term known as reactive abuse, a manipulation tool where someone deliberately pushes your buttons so they can turn around and blame you for your reaction or to justify their use of physical force. This is also known as baiting, when they are trying to elicit an angry or emotional response from their intended victim. The purpose is to gain control of or intimidate the other person, often accompanied by strong language and threats. It may be particularly jarring if the person doing it is a police officer, someone who can adversely affect your life, who begins to yell and scream at you - someone society tells you that you should trust. Though both police officers responded in radically different ways to their respective situations, patience and courtesy ultimately seemed to be the better approach. We wanted to examine these two scenarios from the standpoint of whether or not a person has been treated fairly.