Hey Loach, glad you are still here. As a former defense attorney and current prosecutor, I just want to say keep up the good work and don’t let morons like Eleusis get you down. His “anti-cop” attitude is in the minority, and as this thread shows, his two brain cells are likely to strangle one another any day now.
There is nothing wrong with your hypothesis (but you don’t need me to tell you that) and your stop and search would be upheld by any judge I’ve ever even heard of. I will just say that there are a minority but growing number of states holding that “he acted nervous” can not be used to determine reasonable suspision. Our state is one of those, and I have had a few cases thrown out because that was the majority of the reason for the officer safety search. Your hypothetical included the reaching for something at waist level, which would give you reason to search even without the nervousness.
Again keep up the good work. Most of us appreciate it and sleep better at night because people like you are there.
Personally, I think you should’ve tasered his ass in that scenario. All those furtive movements… and a cracked windshield? ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZappppp!!! “Stop resisting, Sir!!!” ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZap.
Hey! Loach did it again! If you read his post ‘correctly,’ you’ll see that he uses tasers on law-abiding children and, oh, I don’t know, puppies. And he thinks it’s cool!
Just read between the lines, man.
"[I’m] Sorry, [that there are] no tasers in Jersey [for me to use on children].
I don’t want to be part of the pile on , but as a law abiding , tax paying citizen , thanks for doing your job . I doubt you’re in it for the money , so you must give a shit . Thanks .
I think, at bottom, Eleusis is stressing because this conversation is rubbing his face in the fact that he has to get his cracked windshield fixed, and he can’t afford it right now.
Kind of an odd time of the morning to be posting drunk, isn’t it?
Oh, and I think we can maybe make Loach spin out of control if we all agree to make the rest of this Pitting about his little girl.
I am also not anti-cop, but I’m going to have to come to **Eleusis’ ** defense on this one.
A friend of mine is a sheriff’s deputy. According to him, a cop is given quiet a bit of leeway on whether or not to pull someone over when it comes to minor infractions. One example is speeding… some cops will pull you over for doing 59 in a 55, while others would not. Another example… there are cops who feel it is unjustified to pull someone over for a cracked windshield, and there are cops who feel it is completely justified. The important thing to note is that cops are allowed to do either.
Is it legal for a cop to pull someone over for a cracked windshield? Yes. But that doesn’t mean they *have * to. (See previous paragraph). Any cop who does so is probably just on a fishing expedition, and thus is a Class-A jerk in my book.
But the point is: Loach did not say he ever did so, and in fact denied outright ever having done so. Eleusis did not say “cops who do that are jerks”; Eleusis said “Loach is a jerk for doing this!!!”.
Eleusis is not being called an idiot for opposing cops who pull people over for cracked windshields. He is being called an idiot for not being able to tell the difference between example and truth. And for not being able to understand the difference even after twenty people explained it to him. And for going completely ballistic in the argument without any provocation. And for being a general idiot.
To us it may be a fishing expedition, but to them it’s a pretext stop, and rightly or wrongly it’s just a fact of life. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve generally found that how often I’ve been pulled over throughout the years has been directly proportional to the length of my hair. It can be irritating, but irritating doesn’t necessaily translate into a legal argument.
Pretext stops happen all the time: license plate light out, part of the plate obscured by the little dealership ring around the plate, riding your bicycle after dark without a light on it, etc. etc. That last one’s a biggie around here. I had one guy who was given two tickets in a two week period for not having a light on his bike; part of the reason they kept approaching him about it was that he was a registered sex offender and convicted rapist and they just wanted to keep tabs on him. The third time they approached him and he still didn’t have a light, they arrested him for it (which they can do) for it and found cocaine in the bike bag. The DA used his priors to enhance him and he got 15 years.
I have guys all the time ranting and raving about how they were “illegally searched” when what they really mean is “that cop was a jerk to do me that way,” which are two entirely different things. A cop who pulls you over because your license plate light is out when he really wants to see if you look stoned and your car smells like weed may seem like a jerk to you, but you’re still the one who’s going to go to jail. That’s why the really serious guys drive nondescript four door sedans that are completely up to code, and never speed. If you’re going to drive around with a gun in your waistband, better get your windshield fixed.
