Wichita police on ‘COPS’: Driver turns seat belt violation into arrest at gunpoint

A Missouri man who was driving in Kansas without wearing his seat belt turned a minor traffic stop into an arrest at gunpoint that was aired on national television.

The “COPS” episode features Officer Kaleb Brewer of the Wichita Police Department. The scene is part of “COPS” episode 22 of season 32, titled “Too Little, Too Late,” which first aired Monday on the Paramount Network.

Spoiler: The TV show posted video of the scene on Facebook.

“He got his windows down, wasn’t wearing a seat belt,” Brewer said as the video shows him approaching a white van. The driver clearly is not wearing a seat belt, and a large dog is riding in the passenger seat.

“I just stopped him for a basic seat belt, and it turned into something more pretty quickly,” the officer said.

The van drove away during the traffic stop as Brewer sat in his patrol vehicle running the driver’s license through SPIDER dispatchers. The police chase went through a residential neighborhood near Pawnee and Hillside in south Wichita, reaching speeds of 50 mph along Roseberry Street before Cessna Drive came to a dead end.

People fleeing from police in that area is apparently common.

“There’s a lot of illegal drug use in the area that we were in, and people take off quite a bit down there,” Brewer said.

The driver pulled over, and Brewer pulled out his gun.

“He later told me I was taking too long and he decided to leave,” Brewer said. “He got anxious. Had a suspended driver’s license — didn’t have any warrants. He had just a little bit of marijuana. He wasn’t too happy. He seemed to have a very anti-government telling him what to do (attitude).”

The driver, who Brewer calls “Daniel” in the video, questioned the legal authority for the traffic stop.

“Is this the land of the free, the home of the brave?” he asked the officer. “Man, they’re staving us. We’re going down, baby, fast. I mean, why do they even have the right to pull me over? I shouldn’t have to. ... I don’t need America and Uncle Sam to tell me whether or not to wear my seat belt.”

When Brewer asked him if the marijuana was his, he said “absolutely, that’s my medicine.” He said he uses marijuana to treat bipolar disorder and stabilize his mood, claiming that prescription drugs “probably gives me cancer.”

The man’s face had streams of blood running down from his forehead and dripping onto his white tank-top as he spoke. Brewer later said the driver told him that he struck his head on the front of the cage in the patrol vehicle because he is claustrophobic.

The TV show didn’t explicitly identify the driver, but booking reports from the Sedgwick County Jail show Daniel Edward Lomas, of Blue Springs, Missouri, was arrested by Brewer on July 16 in the 4000 block of East Cessna. His mug shot showed a bandage on his head.

The booking charges were failure to wear a seat belt, driving on a suspended, canceled or revoked license, fleeing or attempting to elude law enforcement, failure to yield at a stop or yield sign, possession of marijuana and possession with intent to use drug paraphernalia.

This story was originally published February 12, 2020 at 10:11 PM.