Actually I was trying to keep the discussion somehow car-related. But my conflating was intentional. You can be killed by a loose wheel from a passing truck, you can be killed by drunk driver, you can be killed by a reckless driver evading the police. I put all three of these on the same plane, so to speak. And my mistake about the horse rustling.
Is it unfair? Yes, absolutely. It is entirely unfair that people that look like me, or my coworker, commit crimes turning me into a suspect. Is it illegal? Iām not a legal expert, so Iāll say maybe. Is it effective or useful? I donāt know for sure, but I suspect it helps. And thatās a step in the right direction.
Doesnāt affect me directlyā¦hmmā¦
When I was 11 my bike had a broken chain but my friend and I wanted to go for a ride. His sister told him she didnāt want that colored kid borrowing her bike. Iām not Black.
When I was 19 I started a job working evenings at a full service gas station. A week later the owner asked the manager why he would hire an Indian. Iām not Native.
When I was 30 I was moving my toolbox to a new job and one of the guys remarked āHey Jackie Chan is coming to work here.ā Iām not Chinese.
A couple of years ago one of my co-workers came to me on May 6 and said he figured Iād be all hung over and smelled like tequila because it was Cinco de Mayo. Iām not Mexican.
My 14 year old son was at his girlfriends house and met her grandparents. Afterwards grandma asked the girl āIs he Black or White?ā
It would appear it has affected me all my life and is now affecting my kids too.
Thereās not much I do that isnāt thought through first.
Tl;dr. Most of the arguments here is around whether police endanger the public by pursuing criminals for relatively minor crimes. But I think it is rather difficult for the officer involved to tell the difference between some stupid joy riding kid and Mr Winston Wolf (pulp fiction) taking a car with a body in the trunk to the crusher just before the pursue
I am also no legal expert, just a citizen who is familiar with the Bill of Rights, and that knowledge comes in handy during traffic stops.
Never forget that the Supreme Court decided a police officer is allowed to lie to you during a traffic stop, but you can go to jail for lying to the officer. That is why it is unsafe to take a police officer at his word during a traffic stop. They did this to themselves.
I saw a video created by a lawyer, who created it for his son, IIRC. The video shows a young male driver tell his passengers not to open the doors or roll down the windows under any circumstances after a police stop. The police canāt get in unless you let them in. He has both hands at 10 and 2 on the steering wheel, and rolls the window down enough to converse with the policeman, but not far enough for the office to get his hand inside. He asks the office how he can help, and listens for the response. The slightly lowered window also allows the driver to pass his license and registration to the officer. He politely declines any attempt by the officer to gain entry, always adding how else he can help. The policeman asks the driver to get out, which de does, after reminding his riders to keep the doors locked and windows up. After getting out, the driver asks again how he can help. He left the keys in the car, BTW. He canāt open the doors, and canāt open the trunk. This way he avoids illegal search, which the officer could easily deny. An old white guy like me probably doesnāt need to know this, but you never know.
Yep, knowing your rights doesnāt necessarily mean knowing how to exercise them during a traffic stop. My approach is very basic. I start by saying, āWith all respect, I am exercising my 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendment rights.ā Itās important not to slur your speech or say this too fast or too loud. Staying calm and being both respectful and professional prevents the officer from using your nervousness as probable cause to search your car without a warrant. Thatās almost always where the conversation ends. If it doesnāt end the conversation, you have the option of either describing the rights you just exercised or answering questions with a question, such as āAm I legally obligated to answer that question?ā or āAm I legally obligated to answer that question without an attorney present?ā
If all else fails, you can always keep your mouth shut with a dumb look on your face.
Iām sorry but I have to get back to my studies so itās been fun reading some of this but canāt read it all yet. It just reminded me as a kid I was stopped on my motor bike. As the officer was talking to me, he heard a squealing tire off in the distance (It was Friday night). He told me to stay there while he went to investigate. Thinking back, I wonder what would have happened if I would have ditched the motor bike in back of the funeral home and ran home instead of waiting for him to come back? Iād probably still be looking over my shoulder though.
And thatās why thereās a concept that cops need reasonable suspicion before they take a given action. Itās why theyāre not allowed to conduct non-consensual searches of your car after you were pulled over for speeding and the officer has no articulable reason to suspect you have anything illegal in your car.
If you have a dime bag on the dashboard, thatās articulable suspicion that you have illegal stuff in your car, and the cop can then execute a search. But if you were only speeding, show no signs of impairment, and thereās no evidence that you have contraband, the cop isnāt allowed to just toss your car.
The point of that ramble is that yes, youāre right, the cop canāt necessarily tell if the person heās tempted to chase is just a joyriding teenager or Buffalo Bill, but absent any evidence to the latter heās not supposed to act on it.
After all, when the cop pulls me over for speeding, for all he knows I do have a body in the trunk. That doesnāt mean he gets to search the trunk, or haul me out of the car at gunpoint, because the only crime Iāve committed that he knows Iāve committed is driving too fast and heās supposed to deal with that issue and then let me go unless he sees evidence of other crimes.
When I was in my late teens, I was out with friends. We were driving home from a bar in DC, and weāre pulled over by a policeman. He wanted the driver to open the trunk, but she couldnāt. She borrowed her auntās car and only had the ignition key. He didnāt believe her, but since she didnāt have the key, that made no difference. He kept us there for more than an hour, but finally let us go. Of course, he wouldnāt tell us anything. She told her father about it and he went to the police station and demanded to know what was going on. They told him that some kids were out stealing stop signs and the officer want to check the trunk for them. If he had a real suspicion that we were the perps, he could have used a pry bar to open the trunk. I guess we didnāt act suspicious enough, and he let us go. Eventually.
In all my encounters, Iāve never been asked to open the trunk. I must look honest or harmless or something. The only time I was asked to look in the car was my, second encounter I think. My date and I were coming out of the drive in and a deputy pulled me over. He said he thought I had taken a sip of beer. I only had a Coke and after a quick check of the car and finding us both fully clothed and no alcohol (no one used drugs then), just apologized and we were on our way. I used to regularly carry my shot gun in my VW too, back when everyone did-for game, not people but you never know.
Things change I guess, pot smoking guy in high school gut pulled over for a tail light not wotking, bogus of course but they even went to the trouble of having the spare tire removed from the rim to look for pot, but totally missed the marked āDOPE BOXā sitting in the back seat, which yes was full of weed.
I donāt know what a dope box is but obviously hiding in plain sight comes to mind. Guys from the wrong side of the tracks told me never steal from a car in the dark but pick one under the light pole. No one will notice. Iāve had no occasion to test the theory though.
Getting a chance to read some of the other comments though, I have probably had 10-15 encounters with locals, deputies, and highway patrol. I have never ever started the conversation off with notifying them of my constitutional rights. I canāt imagine, in my experience anyway, how this would do anything except antagonize the officer, and turn a 10 minute stop into a two hour event as other units are called in to assist. Remember Stalin? Show me the man and Iāll show you the crime. Theyāve got laws youāve never heard of, and can just make them up if they want.
They were repaving our street, and our neighbor lady wanted some of the old brick pavers, I loaned her a work high visibility sweatshirt and said if you are wearing this no one will care. If the repaving had been concerned about a couple dozen paver bricks I would not have done it.
I donāt want that much of a police state where the government can track my every move. Iāve got nothing to hideā¦and the police have no reason to track me.
itās built in to new cars. I was referring to older cars. They would have to put transceivers at intersections to interrogate the limited range powerless transponder chips but they are already doing that to provide emergency control of traffic lights and hazard signals. Newer cars are trackable through GPS, cellular, and Internet signals. I can turn off those things from the dash display, but they might not be really off, just not usable by me. There are also covert cameras spotted around.
Sheesh, hit the wrong button and everything goes blank. At any rate I have the EZ pass (Illinois) transponder on my windshield. I understand how they can read it going through a toll booth, but not sure they can tell Iāve been in Minnesota for most of last year. ( I did sneak by them once without guaranteeing though) Itās been pretty boring if they have been watching my car anyway. I also pay for OnStar and I know they know where I am all the time. I donāt think they have a camera though or are listening to me talk to myself. If they are, I just expect that they will not sell or give the data to someone else unless I authorize it. I guess thatās my issue. Where I go or what I say to myself in my own car should be private. Didnāt Facebook just announce that they arenāt going to sell the information to advertisers anymore or something? Might be the crack in the ole dike developing.
