Man Arrested for Resisting Arrest, Making Threatening Moves

A man who had been stopped and cited for not wearing a seatbelt ended up behind bars Monday morning after he allegedly made moves toward a weapon.

The incident occurred on Blossom Lane right off Evelyn Avenue around 11:10 a.m. Mountain View Patch happened to be outside of Olympus—the former Neto's cafe—and witnessed the incident.

At first it did appear to be a routine stop. The officer spoke to the driver of the white Ford pickup truck and began to write up the citation for the seatbelt violation.

However, the driver's voice began to escalate. He rolled down his passenger side window and began to ask for witnesses in case the police officer did anything. Within seconds, the driver opened his door to possibly get out and the police officer slammed the door shut and instructed him to "stay in the vehicle."

The officer then called for backup.

The officer told the driver to raise his hands where he could see them. The driver did so and continued to yell for witnesses down Blossom Lane.

Seconds later, several more police officers arrived and helped extract the man out of his vehicle. They handcuffed him and put him in a patrol car.

Patch didn't see any foul play from the police officer, but could not see from our vantage point what the driver did—besides opening his car door—to appear threatening or like he was reaching for a weapon.

After a thorough search, the sergeant on the scene told Patch that there wasn't anything of interest in the truck.

Due to the death of two police officers in Santa Cruz last week and the number of officer-involved shootings in the past several days, officers may have reacted with a heightened sense of personal security.

What would you have done as the driver of the vehicle? How do you usually react during a traffic stop? Do you think that the police officers overreacted or were they just being cautious considering the circumstances? Share in comments.

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