Traffic Stop

Location: Missouri

We were driving in front of our friend who got pulled over and accused of running a stop sign. We have dash cam proof that our friend stopped for a pretty long amount of time. And even have footage of the cop driving by and turning his lights on and turning to follow her.

We pulled into a parking spot and our friend pulled in next to us for the traffic stop. This benefited us both, as we continued to be able to record some of the traffic stop in the reflection in the store windows.

The cop walked up and accused our friend of running the stop sign, and she disagreed. The cop was very offended by this, and ran her plates. He misread the plates to dispatch. He said the plates didn't match the truck and began accusing her of stealing the truck. She said it's definitely not stolen, it is her mom's vehicle, and he ordered her to exit the vehicle and get in his car while he continued trying to get more information from dispatch. She listened to his instructions. He then entered her vehicle 3 times to 'try to get vin info'. He did not have permission to enter her vehicle and never told her she was under arrest. We have video of him entering the vehicle in the store window reflection.

After he continued talking with dispatch, he figured out they were looking up the wrong license plate info, and that the truck was not stolen. He apologized and let her go. We got out of the vehicles, because we had actually parked for an event in town that we were attending. He drove around a few blocks then got out and walked up to the event, and seemingly watched her the entire time he was there (like 10 minutes), even getting in line right behind her while she was ordering food.

It was a very weird situation and we're not sure what the best steps are to make sure this cop isn't abusing his powers. Any advice is appreciated.

Update to answer some questions from this.

The reason he claimed for the traffic stop was that she supposedly ran a stop sign. He had no time to run her plates before the traffic stop because her plates weren't in view for him yet. We have a video of her stopping for a total of 8 seconds at that stop sign, then he rolls into view, she starts rolling out of the intersection, and he kicks his lights on in the video.

After he stops and gets out of his vehicle, he collected license and insurance, and started reading the plates off to dispatch. Then accuses her of stealing the truck and asks her to get out of the vehicle.

The traffic stop should have never happened. The reading the plates wrong should have never happened. He lied about the reason he pulled her over, and then everything else happened.

She's planning to file complaints on him, but wanted to make sure to go about it the best way, so it is getting formally handled, because this was an abuse of power. This cop is like 22 years old. We have his first and last name.