POLICE INTERACTION VIDEO: The Texas Education Agency is finalizing a video for high school students and adults that is supposed to show how to interact with police officers during a traffic stop. During the last legislative session, Senator Royce Wes, a Democrat from Dallas, helped author Senate Bill 30 aimed at reducing tension during traffic stops. He explained the purpose behind the video to Public Radio KUT in Austin. Wes said “There’s a high likelihood that people will get the information necessary to determine what they need to do and what officers should be doing and if the officers are doing it how to compliment an officer and if an officer is not doing it how to file a complaint.”
The video program on police-civilian interactions will be mandatory viewing for students, people getting their driver’s licenses for the first time and as well as police cadets. Shelly Ramos is a curriculum division director at the Texas Education Agency.
Ramos explained "So districts have the flexibility in determining which course or courses that instruction would most appropriately be provided, and then the State Board of Education in April required districts to add completion of the instruction on to the students’ transcripts.”
The bill was passed by the Texas state legislature in 2017 with support from civil rights groups and Law Enforcement Associations of Texas.
In Louisiana there is a law that requires driver’s education courses to include traffic stop etiquette. Since January 1st of this year, Louisiana Department of Motor Vehicles has been testing applicants on the subject.
