I think even Eleusis would agree that you shouldn’t be doing that while driving.
Hott! I’d love to watch you bend a goat over the roof of your car and make love to it.
You’d only be jealous.
Dickhead
Ironically, 2 weeks ago I was detained (though not pulled over) by a cop … solely because I have a cracked windsheild.
The goddamned fascist bastard asked me if it was my car, implying I might be a car thief. When I said it was, not only did he not apolgize, the fucking sonofabitch looked me over for a second like he was deciding to try some authoritarian bullshit like asking for my insurance. Lucky for him, he saw I wouldn’t put up with his crap and backed down; but he still had the gall to say “you really need to get that windshield fixed” in a stern voice – like if it was his job to make sure that people obey every law on the books or something.
I should have taken his badge number and called the ACLU, but in all the stress and emotion, I didn’t think to do so. Instead, I just apologized and said I would.
Those are the kind of brutal Stalinist tactics that bastards like Loach employ on a daily basis. I hope someday he and all of the other cops realize what the vast majority of the population think of them and the work they do.
But he sure loves the bone.
I have along beard, long hair and ride a Harley and have done so for decades. I have been pulled over more than a couple of times for bogus reasons.
That said:
Eleusis I understand the nature of your complaint at it’s core but the method of discussing it is fucked up. This particular officer has done nothing that I can tell and your assumption of his guilt is the worse kind of bigotry. Far worse than the profiling you referred to earlier.
Maybe something like “Loach, I’m sorry. I think many cops abuse their power and single out certain types of people. I think the one in the story may be one of those. However, I don’t know you and my coming unglued here may have been a bit hasty and uncalled for.”
Feel free to use all or part of this as you see fit.
Nic
About three months ago I got pulled over for cracked windscreen. (Actually a empty sub sandwich wrapper on the dashboard; the windscreen was fine)
Now I knew this was a bullshit stop cause the incline on the dashboard would have made it impossible for them to see the ‘crack’ from behind the car. Which was their viewpoint then they started flashing lights for me to pull in.They checked the tax and tyres and asked about MOT (Certificate of Road Worthiness) and my licence and insurance.
Tyres were fine and I confirmed I had the papers etc but not on me and offered to produce papers at a local police station. They declined (I figure they couldn’t be bothered with paper work).
I was driving an old 1989 car and I figure they were looking for an easy ‘bust’ as the yanks might say on either tyres or MOT/Tax insurance. I co-operated and was polite.
Now with my lawyers hat on I felt this was a complete piece of bullshit reason for stop. I wouldn’t have minded a search of the car and myself. Been something to have a laugh about with my local defence solicitors.
Now search laws are different in Scotland to US but obviously seems to be case that ‘stop’ reasons are an issue on both sides.
I have been stopped on a bullshit reason but unlike the dumb fuck in Loach’s hypotetical thread I didn’t do my best to get maced in the face or get a cavity search.
To give him the benefit of the doubt I wonder if Eleusis is not bothered perhaps overly on the stop issue rather than the search justification. Some people are very nervous when dealing with cops and I can see from a layman’s viewpoint which I presume Eleusis is that someone stopped for a trivial matter who acts nervous and finds himself getting searched might feel outraged.
That said if I’d been a cop in US with some moron reaching for his waist band repeatedly I think I’d have been keeping my hand firmly on the but of my service revolver. Whatever he planned to pull out of his trousers I don’t think I’d have wanted to see.
That was a nice try at inpersonating Eleusis but you are still too coherent and you should split this up into at least three posts preferably with several exclamation points and perhaps a few lines in all caps.
Seriously, that was pretty funny.
How about a cop in Ohio who pulls over a car with a Pennsylvania license plate on it for ‘failing to display the front license plate’ (which PA does not issue) and then demands to search the car because the driver ‘looks like a drug addict’?
That one actually happened, and it was a bullshit stop from minute one, since it’s plain that the car does not have Ohio tags.
I refused to let him search my car, got threatened (‘If you don’t let me search that car, you’re going to have a very bad evening.’), wouldn’t get irate and give him a reason to arrest me, was told he’d bring a dog out, and eventually after figuring out that I would neither budge nor do anything illegal he gave up on it.
Thank God he didn’t ask if you had any kids. That coulda got REAL ugly.
Well, you’ll get no argument from me about that being shitty behaviour. There are too many bully-boy cops out there, and this guy sounds like an example.
Not sure how it relates to my post, though. I was talking about a Terry frisk, and a request to search the inside of your car is a completely different situation.
Sounds like you got stopped by a shit head of a cop. I got a shit head of a cop once too. Is it safe to assume that because one cop in Ohio was a shit head, you do not assume all cops are shit heads? I have met far more nice and polite cops than rude or stupid ones.
BTW: Driving a black 70’s Camaro with over-sized tires is a great way to get pulled over a lot. I was always polite and the officers were always polite and usually cut me a break.
The one idiot pulled me over while I was driving my Hyundai Excel and for going 3 miles over the limit. As he was checking my license, he took off after another car and after wasting 25 minutes of my time still gave me a speeding ticket. That is a dickish thing to do.
Jim
I figured I’d give an example of the difference between what was legitimate (Terry frisk) and what was actually dickhead behavior.
That and other experiences have led to my tendency to distrust police officers. While there are many good cops out there, I find that it’s too risky to trust one and be wrong.
That’s pretty dickheaded.
If he had the legal right to search your car he wouldn’t ask your permission, he’d just do it. So the fact that he asked your permission is clear evidence that he didn’t have any reason that would stand up in court to search your car, and was hoping you’d cave to his authority.
But he didn’t break any laws, he didn’t do anything wrong. He thought you were suspicious he asked to search your car, you said no, and he had to let you go without searching you.
You don’t think that threatening me after pulling me over with no valid legal reason at all was in any way wrong?
Wrong legally or ethically? I am sure that ethically he was wrong, I am not sure legally he was wrong. Unfortunately they are rarely the same as legally is set with the arbitrary laws of the locality, state and country but Ethics is mostly opinion and custom. However, it is easy to see he was being a jerk.
Jim
Maybe he was a rookie? I’m a cop in Ohio and we get many cars from PA and Michigan and everyone knows that its ok for those cars to have only one plate. In a nutshell, the law says “If the issuing state gives you two plates, then put 'em on the car. If the state only gives one, put it on the back.” That officer would’ve been in a trick bag if he actually HAD found something in your car (if you had let him search it). The defense attorney would have the evidence thrown out fast enough to make your head spin.
The reason he sounds like a rookie to me is because he interprets the law WAY too literally, and he seems a little fuzzy on our friend the fourth amendment. Often, the rookie is more nervous than you are, but he can’t let it show, so he’ll try to mask it (i.e. - being overly stern.)
I hate dickhead cops too. I hope everyone realizes that most of us aren’t. But I’ll admit that when we meet a dick like the OP with a huge chip on his shoulder, there is usually a reason for that chip (being up to something illegal), so we’ll dig just that much deeper. And it goes round and round…
On what grounds would the evidence be thrown out following a consensual search?
He doesn’t need to know how many plates PA issues. All he needs to know is that I cannot violate Ohio law by displaying one Pennsylvania license plate.
Yeah sure, a 50 year old beer-gut wearing rookie.
There was never going to be a consensual search.