LEO Encounters and Complaints

Off Topic
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[quote]blakjak wrote:
I was a cop for about 5 years (in pharmacy school now) so I’ll chime in…
There are lots of asshole cops – there are a lot more good cops that show up when and where their needed and and do a job most people can’t… run toward the gunfire instead of away, etc… so all you folks that group them together as a bunch of morons are just wrong… Also, it’s easy to forget that cops work with the knowledge that the next person they stop could be the one that tries to kill them… The cop that keeps this in mind is the one that goes home at the end of the day. And just because a cop comes off as an asshole doesn’t mean that it’s personal… sometimes it’s just a way of stayin sharp and watchin your own ass…

The cop in the OP case was perfectly correct to ask the question… Maybe he was green, maybe not but you can get a lot more from people if you talk to them like human beings rather than like a robot or something…
It’s a cop’s duty to be thorough; you don’t want to be the officer that lets a guy go w/o so much as some general questions only to find out that he killed his wife earlier that night and was lying about where/when he was going/doing and you could’ve caught him had you only asked another question or two so that he got tripped up and started having to lie… So, in general it’s worth the risk of coming off like an asshole every now and then if it ends up savin someone’s life…

On the other hand… the OP was perfectly in the right to refuse to answer the question… I’ve had all kinds of people refuse to answer questions before and they usually end one of three ways
1- I back up and apologize for coming off like an asshole and the person answers the question and we leave on good terms… usually just a person that gets offended (like the OP I guess) and then it gets worked out
2- I write/dont write a ticket and go on my way thinkin that they were hiding something that prolly deserves another look…
3- I feel like there’s another reason they’re not answering; investigate further and usually discover they are involved in some sort of illegal activity that they were attempting to hide… they go to jail

One more thing that is totally missed without watching the video… HOW people say things has a lot to do with it… 99% of people will let you search their cars and will answer any reasonable questions (like the one mentioned in the OP)… There are a few ppl who refuse and this is why cops get a little on edge when people just refuse to answer “routine” questions… because MOST of the ones that refuse have a reason other than just exercising their rights… I’ve arrested people for not wearing a seatbelt after they refused to answer questions… because of how they talked and acted and sure enough he had an 8-ball of meth on him…

[/quote]

None of the above is unreasonable except a suggestion or suspicion that someone who asserts their rights is guilty of something. I know that many times they are. But as I stated in an earlier reply, the price we pay as a free society is that sometimes, criminals will go free. If we violate even the rights of the accused or the guilty in order to “catch them”, then no one, not even the innocent (even yourself) is safe.

Would you agree?

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[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:

[quote]batman730 wrote:
I am pro police. I realize that this makes me stupid/weak/a fascist in the eyes of many on here. I also am pursuing a career in law enforcement. I am not doing this so I can go on a power trip, carry a gun or beat people up. I am doing this because without someone willing to uphold the law and preserve the peace, you have no civilization, period. Flawed as it may be, I prefer civilization to the alternative. I have had the opportunity to go on numerous patrol ride-alongs with my local PD where I have assisted regular officers in their duties. In my experience the vast majority of cops are intelligent, professional down to earth people who are just trying to help. If a problem can be solved without writing a ticket or making an arrest, most are happier to go that route. If you are actually a bad guy, they are pretty keen to lock you up. Like any group, some are better/more professional than others. To make sweeping generalizations about LEO’s regarding their professionalism and integrity seems to be one of the most socially acceptable prejudices in our society today.

Problems absolutely exist, doubtless more prevalently in some PD’s, and they need to be addressed. However I don’t think that universally adopting the attitude of fuck the PO-LICE and giving them as much static as the law will allow at every opportunity is the best solution. I’m not referring specifically to BG’s post here
(he may have a point), so much as the general attitude that the police are your enemy and most of them are assholes.

[/quote]

This is a reasonable attitude. But I hope you are just as opposed to those that would abuse power as you are to those that would be prejudiced against LEO. In a perfect world, only the criminals need worry about LEO. However, the world, and LEO, are not perfect. And innocent people’s rights are violated and innocent people do get charged with crimes. Innocent people are also unreasonably detained.

You have to be willing to let some bad guys go so that you do not trample the rights of the innocent. This is the price we pay for the society we live in. Too many LEO do not understand this and are willing to cross the line, including perjure themselves to make an arrest. Once you’re willing to do that, no one, innocent or otherwise is safe anymore.

Would you agree?

[/quote]

I actually believe that I take stronger exception to any legitimate abuses by LEO than the average person as they reflect on me personally in my future career, just as my actions will reflect on LE as a whole. The world is not perfect by a long shot and LE is no exception, and sometimes the innocent suffer. When this happens, good people are rightly outraged and must continue to be outraged if we are to have a social conscience and retain our basic freedoms.

Regarding allowing the guilty to walk to protect the rights of the innocent, I believe that there must be a little give and take in this area. For example randomly stopping drivers who are showing no signs of intoxication at a road check constitutes an arbitrary detention without reasonable grounds. However due to the grievous harm drunk drivers do in our communities, most of us accept this infringement upon our rights readily enough. I realize that this example is benign enough to be absurd, but I hope you can see the relevance of reasonableness on both sides. Regarding perjury to get a conviction or to cover up misconduct, this is obviously reprehensible for anybody, all the more so for one sworn to uphold the law. There is a lot of gray, but some lines must stay clearly defined, for everyone’s sake.

LEO’s are held to a high standard due to the power we entrust to them and the incredible harm
that power can do if it is abused. However I believe the answer is to hire and train the very best LEO’s possible and to vigorously discipline those who break faith, rather than to move to curtail those powers to the point where LE is unable to effectively serve the public.

So, yeah, overall I would agree.

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[quote]batman730 wrote:

Regarding allowing the guilty to walk to protect the rights of the innocent, I believe that there must be a little give and take in this area. For example randomly stopping drivers who are showing no signs of intoxication at a road check constitutes an arbitrary detention without reasonable grounds. However due to the grievous harm drunk drivers do in our communities, most of us accept this infringement upon our rights readily enough. I realize that this example is benign enough to be absurd, but I hope you can see the relevance of reasonableness on both sides. Regarding perjury to get a conviction or to cover up misconduct, this is obviously reprehensible for anybody, all the more so for one sworn to uphold the law. There is a lot of gray, but some lines must stay clearly defined, for everyone’s sake.

[/quote]

I vigorously disagree with the above and feel your logic is tragically flawed. First, driving is a privilege, not a right. Therefore, I have no problems with DWI checkpoints. In fact, with the new plate reading technology many patrol cars are now equipped with, every time you pass an officer you are in essence passing a “check point” as this technology reads your plate and pulls up your information and instantly allows the officer access to a variety of information about the vehicle and the DL of the vehicle’s registered owner.

There can be no “give and take” when it comes to our rights. None. An officer is ill-equipped to decide when to “give” and when to “take”. In fact, LEO has no right whatsoever under the law to “take” in the context you described. NONE. LEO must operate under the law. And if bad guys go free from time to time, it’s the price we pay as a society and a price most knowledgeable Americans happily pay. It’s why we put up with what we do, especially as illustrated in the “free speech” arena. There is a thin line between “taking” or bending the law when you “know” there is likely a kilo of cocaine in someone’s trunk, but have no legal basis to search, and planting drugs on someone when you feel they are drug traffickers or users. It’s a slippery slope. You win some, you lose some. LEO must be prepared to “lose”. Trample the rights of the guilty (a “take”, a “bend the rules”, is all the same), and nothing remains to protect the innocent. And that sir is a fact.

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[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:

[quote]batman730 wrote:

Regarding allowing the guilty to walk to protect the rights of the innocent, I believe that there must be a little give and take in this area. For example randomly stopping drivers who are showing no signs of intoxication at a road check constitutes an arbitrary detention without reasonable grounds. However due to the grievous harm drunk drivers do in our communities, most of us accept this infringement upon our rights readily enough. I realize that this example is benign enough to be absurd, but I hope you can see the relevance of reasonableness on both sides. Regarding perjury to get a conviction or to cover up misconduct, this is obviously reprehensible for anybody, all the more so for one sworn to uphold the law. There is a lot of gray, but some lines must stay clearly defined, for everyone’s sake.

[/quote]

I vigorously disagree with the above and feel your logic is tragically flawed. First, driving is a privilege, not a right. Therefore, I have no problems with DWI checkpoints. In fact, with the new plate reading technology many patrol cars are now equipped with, every time you pass an officer you are in essence passing a “check point” as this technology reads your plate and pulls up your information and instantly allows the officer access to a variety of information about the vehicle and the DL of the vehicle’s registered owner.

There can be no “give and take” when it comes to our rights. None. An officer is ill-equipped to decide when to “give” and when to “take”. In fact, LEO has no right whatsoever under the law to “take” in the context you described. NONE. LEO must operate under the law. And if bad guys go free from time to time, it’s the price we pay as a society and a price most knowledgeable Americans happily pay. It’s why we put up with what we do, especially as illustrated in the “free speech” arena. There is a thin line between “taking” or bending the law when you “know” there is likely a kilo of cocaine in someone’s trunk, but have no legal basis to search, and planting drugs on someone when you feel they are drug traffickers or users. It’s a slippery slope. You win some, you lose some. LEO must be prepared to “lose”. Trample the rights of the guilty (a “take”, a “bend the rules”, is all the same), and nothing remains to protect the innocent. And that sir is a fact. [/quote]

I think you misunderstand me a little. I was not not referring to driving as a right so much as your right to be free from arbitrary detention, i.e. the stop itself. A plate reader scans your vehicle but does not physically detain you in any way. If you choose to exit your vehicle and walk (not stumble) away from a DWI checkpoint, you will very likely find that you are not free to go, even though you are simply exercising your rights, which is (as you pointed out in another reply) not lawful grounds for suspicion or detention.

“Give and take” was a poor choice of words, admittedly. Perhaps mutual and voluntary co-operation would have been better. I never meant to imply that LEO should have discretion as to which of your rights apply and which do not and when. That way lies madness. I meant only that it is not always sensible for we the people to insist on exercising all of our freedoms to their fullest extent, in every single instance.

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[quote]batman730 wrote:

[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:

[quote]batman730 wrote:

Regarding allowing the guilty to walk to protect the rights of the innocent, I believe that there must be a little give and take in this area. For example randomly stopping drivers who are showing no signs of intoxication at a road check constitutes an arbitrary detention without reasonable grounds. However due to the grievous harm drunk drivers do in our communities, most of us accept this infringement upon our rights readily enough. I realize that this example is benign enough to be absurd, but I hope you can see the relevance of reasonableness on both sides. Regarding perjury to get a conviction or to cover up misconduct, this is obviously reprehensible for anybody, all the more so for one sworn to uphold the law. There is a lot of gray, but some lines must stay clearly defined, for everyone’s sake.

[/quote]

I vigorously disagree with the above and feel your logic is tragically flawed. First, driving is a privilege, not a right. Therefore, I have no problems with DWI checkpoints. In fact, with the new plate reading technology many patrol cars are now equipped with, every time you pass an officer you are in essence passing a “check point” as this technology reads your plate and pulls up your information and instantly allows the officer access to a variety of information about the vehicle and the DL of the vehicle’s registered owner.

There can be no “give and take” when it comes to our rights. None. An officer is ill-equipped to decide when to “give” and when to “take”. In fact, LEO has no right whatsoever under the law to “take” in the context you described. NONE. LEO must operate under the law. And if bad guys go free from time to time, it’s the price we pay as a society and a price most knowledgeable Americans happily pay. It’s why we put up with what we do, especially as illustrated in the “free speech” arena. There is a thin line between “taking” or bending the law when you “know” there is likely a kilo of cocaine in someone’s trunk, but have no legal basis to search, and planting drugs on someone when you feel they are drug traffickers or users. It’s a slippery slope. You win some, you lose some. LEO must be prepared to “lose”. Trample the rights of the guilty (a “take”, a “bend the rules”, is all the same), and nothing remains to protect the innocent. And that sir is a fact. [/quote]

I think you misunderstand me a little. I was not not referring to driving as a right so much as your right to be free from arbitrary detention, i.e. the stop itself. A plate reader scans your vehicle but does not physically detain you in any way. If you choose to exit your vehicle and walk (not stumble) away from a DWI checkpoint, you will very likely find that you are not free to go, even though you are simply exercising your rights, which is (as you pointed out in another reply) not lawful grounds for suspicion or detention.

“Give and take” was a poor choice of words, admittedly. Perhaps mutual and voluntary co-operation would have been better. I never meant to imply that LEO should have discretion as to which of your rights apply and which do not and when. That way lies madness. I meant only that it is not always sensible for we the people to insist on exercising all of our freedoms to their fullest extent, in every single instance.
[/quote]

I understand you, and thanks for the clarification, but I’m not sure I can agree with your closing statement. And I’m not sure you understand the heart of what I’m arguing here. I understand your statement, from a LEO perspective, because “exercising our rights all the time” IS potentially inconvenient to LEO. However, I believe it’s that very mentality that is the problem - not the exercising of your rights. We have become over-zealous in our policing of this nation. Everything is now couched in terms of the “war on…”. We do not go to war against our own citizens and this mentality pervades LEO. Most LEO now look like some kind of para-military operation. The uniforms - tucked in pants in combat boots, etc., are ridiculous and give the impression we’re living in occupied territory. It’s so common place now, I bet the younger generation barely notices. When I was growing up, police wore a blue uniform and shoes - not military like garb with boots.

Like I said, I think that to ensure that all are afforded the liberties that we are guaranteed, some bad guys have to go free. I think it’s absurd to suggest that we should not insist on exercising all of our rights all the time just because it may be inconvenient to LEO. Just as we have to tolerate certain forms of media that we may find objectionable in order to guarantee our right to free speech, we must tolerate that sometimes, the bad guys will get away - so that the the rights of the innocent are not violated.

LEO has a wealth of investigative techniques and tools at its disposal to pursue criminals. Our exercising our rights all the time is hardly a hindrance to that effort. I think it’s the attitude from LEO that exercising said rights is somehow obtrusive that is the problem.

Admit it; you think exercising our rights all the time is impractical and obstructive in a sense. We should all just “cooperate” and “get along” right? But why is asserting a right perceived by LEO as a declaration of not wanting to “get along” or be “uncooperative”? Don’t get me wrong - I understand that mindset and I’m often a victim of this school of thought myself. Don’t think for one minute I’m some one-man jihad of rights at every traffic stop. First, I’m always polite and respectful. I usually always tell the officer before he leaves to “be safe”. I usually even say thank you, even when I get a ticket - as long as the officer was polite, professional and I was in fact guilty of the infraction. And I usually always “cooperate” in the sense you are suggesting.

But should I really raise suspicion because I object to any interrogation during a simple traffic stop? I’m not exaggerating when I say “interrogation”, because asking you the origins of your trip is exactly that - interrogation. It may sound innocuous, but it’s not. It has nothing to do with the stop. You know it and I know it - it’s a fishing expedition. And it’s a fishing trip that I do not have to agree to (as you and other LEO have acknowledged). I know every good officer doing his job will ask that and other questions as they see fit and I have no objection to that. But refusing to answer questions we are not obligated to answer should not ALONE be cause for suspicion or offense.

I’m not meaning to debate this endlessly. I appreciate your sincere view point. I understand the realities of cooperation. But I think those “realities” are a problem. And I’m not entirely sure you understand where exactly I’m coming from. Interesting talk…

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[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]batman730 wrote:

…Regarding perjury to get a conviction or to cover up misconduct, this is obviously reprehensible for anybody…[/quote]

FTR, I have personally had a LEO blatantly perjure himself in court just to obtain a speeding conviction against me. A FUCKING SPEEDING TICKET. He sacrificed his personal integrity, if he had any to begin with, in order to procure $85.00 for Leon County, Florida’s coffers and to justify the ticket he gave me.
[/quote]

This happens every single day in this Country. Every. Single. Day. And some wonder aloud why the mistrust of LEO? Why not just cooperate they reply?

Officer’s testifying with remarkable clarity and detail about tickets written over a month ago, without any written notes. Get. The. Fuck. Outta. Here!

Traffic enforcement is largely just a tax cloaked under the auspices of “safety”. Here in NJ tickets are routinely downgraded without so much as the batting of an eyelash. It’s about money. They want your money and you can happily drive again. Points? You mean the points you accumulate and eventually lose your driving privilege if you continue to accumulate them? LOL. We’ll downgrade you to a lesser point, or no point offense! And then they tax you with “surcharges”.

The fact is, if everyone is traveling the same speed, it’s a safe road. Spend your time pursuing and sniffing out DWI, not hiding behind a rock to catch the car traveling 10 mph over the speed limit on a highway among cars all doing the same relative speed. That’s not enforcing safety, that’s collecting a tax.

About the only economic motivator that encourages the safe operation of a vehicle is the insurance rate you face for your offenses. But if even that system is to work, the Court undermines it every time it downgrades a ticket to a lesser offense just to pad the localities coffers.

The system is royally fucked, and we’re the ones taking it up the ass.

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[quote]debraD wrote:
.[/quote]

Your contribution…a picture. Not unexpected.

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[quote]debraD wrote:
.[/quote]

Shouldn’t you be chained to a radiator somewhere?

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What did you do wrong when DebraD injects some random silliness into an respectful thread full of intelligent discourse? You made her chain too long - it shouldn’t reach from the radiator to the lap top.

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[quote]debraD wrote:
.[/quote]

Not at all :slight_smile: Now, that’s much better…

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[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:

Traffic enforcement is largely just a tax cloaked under the auspices of “safety”. Here in NJ tickets are routinely downgraded without so much as the batting of an eyelash. It’s about money. They want your money and you can happily drive again. Points? You mean the points you accumulate and eventually lose your driving privilege if you continue to accumulate them? LOL. We’ll downgrade you to a lesser point, or no point offense! And then they tax you with “surcharges”.

[/quote]

Ah the good old Jersey plea. You get caught doing 65 in a 55 (even though all traffic is going that speed) and its $180 ticket. However, go to court plea down to unsafe driving (no points) and for $500 the points magically go away.

I’ve gotten 30 in a 25, 41 in a 30, and 2 years ago 62 in a 50. All were plead down if I paid the town $500 in “fees” so I got no points.

Keep in mind, anyone driving less than 5 miles per hour over the speed limit in Jersey, will have a mile long conga line of cars behind you. All them taking turns honking and cursing at you.

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[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
So, why didn’t you do exactly what the officer asked and then pursue recourse later? Isn’t that the advice you gave in the other thread?

I don’t see this as any different than the other thread. Officer who doesn’t know the law detaining someone and issuing commands out of that ignorance. Did you not have the duty to obey? If not, why?[/quote]

I knew you’d be along with your illogical bullshit. And I have an answer for you:

I was not knowingly baiting the law. My tail light was out. I didn’t have my recorder ready at hand and a refusal ready for him. As I stated to the Chief in my e-mail, if he had engaged me in some friendly and professional banter as opposed to the nazi-checkpoint act, I would have probably told him.

Next, I did not possess a weapon and I was not making a LEO with a weapon trained upon me nervous.

BIG FUCKING DIFFERENCE. Remember when I said in the other thread I was starting to feel like I’ve given you too much credit? I’m decided; I have.[/quote]

First of all, it was an honest question as to what you thought was different.

Next, you seem to indicate that it is okay to exercise your rights as long as it doesn’t make cops nervous? Once again, that would make it not a right.

You were refusing to answer for the sake of refusing to answer. You were purposely being provocative, tape recorder or not. You could have easily answered the question and avoided the situation, but you chose not to. You put your family through that every bit as much as the cop did. It should have been obvious to you that the officer honestly believed himself right since he was willing to call his supervisor.

96

I haven’t read this thread but I will repeat the story a friend told me last fall.

To start, this friend had been in some trouble in the past and spent some time locked up for a cocaine related charge. He was young, but over 18 and under 21. He also had some marijuana charges. We will call him Joe.

Anyway, he was a mess for awhile but was getting his life back together and doing a fairly good job at it. He was back in school and off any and all shit, but still on probation. Another friend of mine had a bit of a grow op going, and was hooking up this other guy a state away. Joe lent him a cooler to move some stuff up to Michigan, which was returned after a trip.

So Joe gets this cooler, throws it in his trunk, and drives within the state back home from his school and ends up getting pulled over. They run his license, see he has a record, ask to search his car, which he refuses, so they call in a dog.

If you haven’t seen the evidence, drug dogs are pretty much worthless and go off the mood of the handler. The last thing I saw on the matter, they had these dogs searching lockers at a school and they indicated something like 37 lockers and no drugs were found.

Anyway, the dog starts going nuts, they pull him out of the car and search his trunk and find the cooler. He’s freaking out at this point thinking something was left in it, which there wasn’t but it stunk to high heaven of dope. So at this point, Joe is like thank god I’m getting out of this, because technically he had done nothing wrong and they had no evidence to charge him with anything.

So, they go in and search the interior of the car, then the officer comes back with a joint. Now, Joe swears up and down that it is not his and that the cop planted it and judging by his efforts to move on and get away from all the stuff he used to do, I tend to believe him. It was a new car, and maybe a passenger dropped it in there, but I doubt it as he was on probation and paranoid about even being around the stuff.

Regardless, they charged him with possession which broke his probation and he was thrown back into a world of legal bullshit for awhile, but is doing just fine now.

Either way, when I heard that I was raging for awhile and a cop would actually do something like that, but I’m sure it happens all the time.

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[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]Silvergoat 66 wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]batman730 wrote:
I am pro police. I realize that this makes me stupid/weak/a fascist in the eyes of many on here. I also am pursuing a career in law enforcement. I am not doing this so I can go on a power trip, carry a gun or beat people up. I am doing this because without someone willing to uphold the law and preserve the peace, you have no civilization, period. Flawed as it may be, I prefer civilization to the alternative. I have had the opportunity to go on numerous patrol ride-alongs with my local PD where I have assisted regular officers in their duties. In my experience the vast majority of cops are intelligent, professional down to earth people who are just trying to help. If a problem can be solved without writing a ticket or making an arrest, most are happier to go that route. If you are actually a bad guy, they are pretty keen to lock you up. Like any group, some are better/more professional than others. To make sweeping generalizations about LEO’s regarding their professionalism and integrity seems to be one of the most socially acceptable prejudices in our society today.

Problems absolutely exist, doubtless more prevalently in some PD’s, and they need to be addressed. However I don’t think that universally adopting the attitude of fuck the PO-LICE and giving them as much static as the law will allow at every opportunity is the best solution. I’m not referring specifically to BG’s post here
(he may have a point), so much as the general attitude that the police are your enemy and most of them are assholes.

[/quote]

They are your enemies.

Who cares what they are and why they are what they are.

Leave excuses for the weak, there always have been and always will be people who enforce the most absurd and intrusive laws if they get paid.

Being a thug is not remedied by carrying a badge and a gun, and at least when there is a lack of civilization the asshole shaking you down does not have the air of moral superiority.

In short:

Fuck them.

[/quote]
OK troll, I’ll bite. So explain how you would have the public peace upheld without these “assholes”?

[/quote]

I feel like I am obliged now to give a semi-intelligent answer.

So, please, let us get this out of the way first, fuck you, you cunt.

Having made my position on moral blackmail over the internet as clear as possible, lets move on.

You can have one of two extremes:

You can have a multitude of laws that breed resentment for those laws and nobody really cares, or you can have few and strictly enforced laws.

What you cannot have is a multitude of laws that are strictly enforced.

It not only breeds a disdain for the laws, and rightly so, it is also dainting the people enforcing those laws.

Right now, a cop in the US can arrest you and seize your property if you have too much cash on you, RICO that started out with three laws is now used with over 1000, meaning, the burden of prood is no longer with the government, but on you, DAs can pile so much charges on you that you will never see the ligzht of day again unless you plea bargain.

That, it does not pain me in the least to say, is not the standard of civilized nations. You could not even become a member of the EU right now.

Not that you are desperately trying to get in, but the very idea that you are found lacking, and for good reason, should be some cause for concern.

In case you are one of those:

USA! USA!

Happy?[/quote]

Take your BP medicine and calm down sweetheart, its only an internet forum. Considering that you made a statement based only loosely on the question that I asked you, it leads me to believe that your problem isn’t just with LEO’s, it’s with the whole system.

You wrote:
You can have a multitude of laws that breed resentment for those laws and nobody really cares, or you can have few and strictly enforced laws.

What you cannot have is a multitude of laws that are strictly enforced.

On who’s consensus/ what authority is this based off of? What country in the world DOESN’T have a multitude of laws that at least some percentage of the population resent? Sounds an awful lot like an opinion to me. Luckily for most people, your opinion Orion, means nothing.

In other words, deine Mutter ist eine Hure, und fick dich auch.

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[quote]Silvergoat 66 wrote:

In other words, deine Mutter ist eine Hure, und fick dich auch.

[/quote]

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This youtube video is pretty informative. I wouldn’t necessarily employ everything suggested on it but it does give a pretty good rundown of what your rights are and what a LEO’s boundaries are. It gives examples/enactments of different scenarios.

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[quote]theuofh wrote:
I haven’t read this thread but I will repeat the story a friend told me last fall.

To start, this friend had been in some trouble in the past and spent some time locked up for a cocaine related charge. He was young, but over 18 and under 21. He also had some marijuana charges. We will call him Joe.

Anyway, he was a mess for awhile but was getting his life back together and doing a fairly good job at it. He was back in school and off any and all shit, but still on probation. Another friend of mine had a bit of a grow op going, and was hooking up this other guy a state away. Joe lent him a cooler to move some stuff up to Michigan, which was returned after a trip.

So Joe gets this cooler, throws it in his trunk, and drives within the state back home from his school and ends up getting pulled over. They run his license, see he has a record, ask to search his car, which he refuses, so they call in a dog.

If you haven’t seen the evidence, drug dogs are pretty much worthless and go off the mood of the handler. The last thing I saw on the matter, they had these dogs searching lockers at a school and they indicated something like 37 lockers and no drugs were found.

Anyway, the dog starts going nuts, they pull him out of the car and search his trunk and find the cooler. He’s freaking out at this point thinking something was left in it, which there wasn’t but it stunk to high heaven of dope. So at this point, Joe is like thank god I’m getting out of this, because technically he had done nothing wrong and they had no evidence to charge him with anything.

So, they go in and search the interior of the car, then the officer comes back with a joint. Now, Joe swears up and down that it is not his and that the cop planted it and judging by his efforts to move on and get away from all the stuff he used to do, I tend to believe him. It was a new car, and maybe a passenger dropped it in there, but I doubt it as he was on probation and paranoid about even being around the stuff.

Regardless, they charged him with possession which broke his probation and he was thrown back into a world of legal bullshit for awhile, but is doing just fine now.

Either way, when I heard that I was raging for awhile and a cop would actually do something like that, but I’m sure it happens all the time.

[/quote]

It’s weird that he was convicted based on a search he didn’t agree to.

A couple years ago when I was taking a law course we covered a case where police pulled over a man for one reason, searched the car, and came up with a trunkful of heroine. However, the case was dismissed on grounds that the search was illegal; there was no warrant and the cops had violated the law by searching his car against his will when there was no reason to suspect him.

Maybe the law changed or the state laws differ a bit, but it sounds like your friend needs a better lawyer.

As for standing up to the cops on principle; it’s really pointless. Nothing is going to come of what BG did. Some officers are not going to stop being dicks and questions aren’t going to stop being asked. Officers aren’t going to start being better trained in the law because of this either.

BG was completely in his right to do what he did and the officers didn’t do anything that could get them sued, so really this is just a standard situation where no one was harmed and thus no difference can be made law or training wise. It’s unfortunate for his mental “must prove a point” sake that BG wasn’t roughed up a bit.