He asked her nicely if she could put out her cigarette for his benefit. She in return started ranting about how it was her car etc.
I don't care if she has the right to remain smoking in her car or not. Someone asked kindly for her to put it out, and she went full rant in return.
I'm sure statistically speaking, if someone is a complete asshole and "resists" any attempt to be nice to the police, they're likely to be breaking other laws - carrying drugs, no car insurance, etc etc.
If you get pulled over by the police, starting an argument and forcing them to escalate things isn't the best idea.
If you get (illegally) pulled over by the (racist) police, what should you do? Submit to their power trip instead?
Given that there's a lot of questions about the audio in general, I'm not sure how nicely he really asked - the entire veracity of the audio stream is under question here: the video skips around but the audio doesn't. That certainly lends credence to the "he was being nice" argument, except for the part where the "nice" could well have been added in post-processing.
Ultimately, a racist institution staffed by racists most likely murdered a woman whose only crimes were (a) not signaling to pull over after the officer signaled her to pull over, for some other reason, and (b) not being polite to the officer in question.
Until and unless you show me that police deserve politeness, the only reason to be polite to them is "because otherwise they may kill you". That is not only f'd up, it's literally terrorism. As in: these acts make us terrified and we are less likely to resist their authority. So, yeah.
" the only reason to be polite to them is "because otherwise they may kill you". "
Spot on. Everyone saying "she should have been nicer" are effectively saying that you should submit to the police or they'll kill you. Nobody is saying "he deserved politeness and she was rude" because it's very obvious that he was not polite to her. "How are you doing? You seem upset?" Well she just got pulled over and is getting a ticket bozo, what do you think?
She responded just as politely as he asked. "I'm in my car why do I have to put out my cigarette?" To which he responded "Well you can step on out now" instead of anything about why she should put it out, such as it being for his benefit. After that is when the ranting about it being her car started.
While I agree knowing her rights certainly didn't work to her advantage in this situation. Your interpretation of events is not what I consider correct, and mine may not be either. I would encourage other people to watch it and determine for themselves what was ranting and what was polite.
"Someone asked kindly for her to put it out, and she went full rant in return."
Which is not illegal. If she has the right to smoke, he has the right to ask her to stop and she has the right to say no.
"If you get pulled over by the police, starting an argument and forcing them to escalate things isn't the best idea."
Yeah, much better to let them do what they want, bully you and find something to arrest you and meet their quotas.
One should not get arrested for being rude, being rude is a fucking right, period.
Also she responded in a way that seemed to be in keeping with her civil rights.