For Artist Rod MacIver, Another Traffic Stop, Another Video Request
For the last year, Monkton artist Rod MacIver has been waging a legal battle with the town of Shelburne. Last December, an officer from the town’s police department wrote MacIver a ticket for running a red light.
But after the artist secured footage from the cop’s cruiser cam that proved his innocence, he sued the town in small claims court. Later, the Vermont chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union took MacIver as a client and filed a suit against the officer in federal court, where depositions are scheduled to take place next month.
But now, it seems, there might be a sequel in the works for MacIver.Last weekend, shortly before 11 p.m. on the evening of December 6, University of Vermont police Officer Mark Schwartz stopped MacIver as he was driving west on Route 2 towards Burlington, near the I-89 ramp. The officer wrote MacIver a ticket for wavering outside the marked lane.
UVM police Lieutenant Laurence Magnant confirmed the date and time of the incident, but wasn’t able to provide further information.
Meanwhile, MacIver is approaching the ticket the same way he did the Shelburne stop: by requesting footage from Schwartz’s cruiser cam. “I’ve had another run-in with the police almost a year to-the-day after my last one,” he says.
The artist hasn't decided whether he'll contest the charge. Although he doesn’t believe he did anything wrong, MacIver says that he is waiting for a full video of the incident to arrive before commenting further.
