I don't know how far the driver went before pulling over in a well-lit area, but I can tell you how the cops processed the driver's decision. It's in their reports.
I believe the younger officer, Crocker, was alarmed by it as he thought the driver was not complying. He was an officer in training. The training officer was Gutierrez, who said he knew exactly what was happening. Because of "media race relations" the driver was going to stop in a well-lit area because of the threat of police violence. It seemed to piss him off.
It was that training officer who gave contradictory orders to the victim Nazario, escalated the situation, and initiated the violence. Yet he knew the driver was being careful, as he admitted in his report, not non-compliant.
So why did he do that when he knew why the driver took a while to stop?
