Cops joke about deciding woman's fate with coin flip

Body-cam footage from an April traffic stop appears to show two Georgia cops using a coin-toss phone app to decide whether they'd arrest a driver for speeding in the rain. The officers, Courtney Brown and Kristee Wilson of the Roswell Police Department, wound up ignoring the results of the coin toss and following ordinary police procedure. But the very idea of leaving such a weighty choice up to chance has led to a national controversy.

The footage—first reported by the Atlanta station 11 Alive—shows Brown approaching Sarah Webb's car. Webb tells Brown that she was speeding because she was late to work. Brown replies that speeding in wet conditions means that she'd likely receive a reckless driving charge. Brown then goes back to the cruiser, where Wilson is waiting. After noting that Webb does not have any speeding tickets, the pair pul up a coin toss app on Brown's phone:

Wilson: A [arrest] head, R [release] tail.
Brown: OK. (sound of coin flip, laugh)
Wilson: This is tail, right?
Brown: "Yeah. So release?"
Wilson: 23. (code for arrest)
Brown: Michael Jordan? (laugh) All right, so I've got too fast (laugh) for conditions, reckless...

Though the coin toss' result meant that Webb would have gone free, Brown and Wilson decided to follow through with the arrest anyway. Brown returned to Webb's vehicle, arrested Webb for reckless driving, and then placed her in the back of the cruiser.

Read more at https://reason.com/blog/2018/07/16/georgia-police-coin-toss-arrest