That doesn’t mean criminal. Incidently, if they were dealing or holding, the last thing they would want to do would be draw the attention of the police by street racing or loud arguments outside where anyone can call the police about the noise.
I am quite sure that that is not a given truth, considering the amount of stories on sees about idiot criminals. There are many, many people that are criminal that do what a normal person considers to be drawing attention to themselves.
This is not really a thread about Irish Travelers, however. Perhaps you’d like to start one to educate us?
The thing is, there are so many laws that you can’t possibly be sure you’re not violating one.
There are also things they can find that, though totally legal, might lead them to think that you are doing something illegal.
Imagine, for example, that this drug dealer they were looking for had been somewhere at a particular time. During the search, they find a receipt that shows that you bought something near that location near that time. The receipt doesn’t indicate anything illegal, but it’s certainly not going to help in getting them to leave you alone.
Since I don’t think anyone’s linked to it in this thread yet: Don’t talk to police.
Apparently that’s a pretty common tactic: “we’ll put everything back where we got it if you let us, but if you make us get a warrant, we’ll make a mess.”
There was actually a sting like this in my college town, and a bunch of people who really were growing nothing but tomatoes got property confiscated, and had to sue to get it back. The scale of the sting was big enough for a class action suit. This was back in the 1980s, and the rumor was that it stemmed from harassment of a particular dealer who claimed to have sold drugs to Dan Quayle when he was in college and law school. Anyway, after an article about a particular, perfectly legal fertilizer, used by many people who started their vegetables indoors for planting outside after the first frost so they could have a harvest sooner (people take their vegetable gardens very seriously in Indiana) was planted (pun intended) in some magazine like High Times, the police began watching anyone who bought it at any of the local garden shops (the fertilizer, not “High Times”), and in particular, singled out people who hadn’t bought it before. They waited for the first frost, and then raided everyone who didn’t put out vegetables. I don’t think they caught a single pot grower, but they confiscated property from hundreds of tomato growers. There was a tomato bug plaguing IN in the 80s, so lots of people were experimenting with indoor growing.
Made you more ashamed to live here than Dan Quayle did in the first place.
H.E.A.D*
*(Hoosiers Embarrassed about Dan)
Popular 80s bumper sticker.
Is there something about a second frost (and subsequent frosts) that’s supposed to be better for tomatoes than first frost? Why didn’t they wait and get warrants against people who didn’t put out plants after the last frost?
Bad News “The Butcher” Baboon!
I’ve decided if I’m ever in that situation, I’d ask the cop what he would do if Internal Affairs (or his equivalent) asked to search his personal car when he was off-duty. Then ask him, since he’d immediately get the union lawyer insisting on his own rights, why is he pissed that I’m insisting on mine in the same situation?
(Or, figure out how to politely call him a damn liar, if he claims he’d say ‘sure’).
You are assuming criminals are smart.
But the trick is, the cops can’t get a warrant, and they don’t expect to obtain enough evidence to ever get a warrant. Hence, the fishing expedition.
Most cops aren’t stupid. They’re also savvy enough to identify which civilians are most likely drug dealers, and which civilians are probably “clean” but may be breaking the law without knowing it. I don’t believe for a second that the cops believed Bad News Baboon was an actual drug dealer – but he may own an unregistered firearm, or he may have ripped the tags off his mattress, or he may have possessed evidence of rebroadcasting a baseball game without the explicit permission of Major League Baseball. Who knows? Being a cop can get boring; it’s the little unexpected surprises that make their job interesting.
Not only that, there’s a good chance they may have seized evidence that wasn’t illegal per se, but could’ve been construed as being used for illegal purposes. Large amounts of cash, for example. Heck, there was a recent thread in which a Doper had all of his prescription meds confiscated, despite being in labeled bottles. And those are just the things that the cops will announce they are seizing as evidence; who knows what other tiny, valuable things (like jewelry) they may pocket while no one’s looking?
That’s really disturbing that 6 of them would confront you, I assume in a parking lot? That just sounds like a fishing expedition. I would wonder how they knew you were there, maybe they had they been following you for some time? They might have wanted to talk to you away from the house so they could safely search it if you were ignorant enough to agree to it.
I believe you when you say they have the wrong person, and I’d agree with other posters that you need to speak to a lawyer that you can call if need be. Because you might not ever hear more about this, or maybe they will arrest you tomorrow on some crazy charge. Even if you eventually got things sorted out you might spend hours or days in jail, and think of what a mess your life will be during that time.
In fact right now I would also be talking to the Chief/Sheriff/whatever to see what their interest is in you. They probably won’t tell you anything, but maybe they will. Talk to the mayor if need be.
Heh – good point. 
I often wonder if some policemen carry about bits of incriminating material to “find” in someone’s car or home.
I’ve relayed stories on this board before, but I’ve had run-ins not too unlike this before and I’ve never done anything worse than speed. Never let a cop search your car or your home without a warrant. Period. Sure, I didn’t have anything to hide when I’ve run into these situations, but I also have absolutely nothing to gain by letting a cop search my car. The onus is on them to prove I did something wrong, not on me to prove my innocence.
For instance, in one case a cop pulled me over and claimed he smelled pot, which was impossible because I’ve never smoked. If I let him search my car, there’s nothing I was afraid of him finding. But what if a recent passenger had left something in my car? What if the cops had decided to plant something? They ultimately threatened to assault me if I didn’t let them search, but fortunately my passengers overheard that, they searched anyway, and when they found nothing, they bailed like a bat out of hell.
Same thing goes for my home, they one time came by wanting to search my home (when I was still living at home and my brother was into bad stuff), I asked if they had a warrant, claimed they had one but also claimed they didn’t need to present it and charged in anyway. And, of course, turns out they didn’t have a warrant and didn’t find anything anyway.
Or another time I was leaving a store and accused of shoplifting, which I hadn’t, he blocked my car in and insisted on searching it, when I refused and he asked why, all I said was because I didn’t have to. He didn’t search my car, but did harass me a little more before he let me go.
It’s really unfortunate that so often cops result to intimidation and it just violates the rights of normal people. But this is where the idea that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance comes from. If we don’t know our rights and protect them, we essentially don’t have them. But if you know your rights and assert them, then their intimidation techniques are ineffective. Be polite, but don’t consent to any search without a warrant, stick to as short of an answer as possible, etc. Unfortunately, when this doesn’t happen, we end up with a story like the OP where there’s nothing to hide, but still they feel violated by consenting to the search, and the 10yo daughter gets scared for no reason.
And, hell, maybe they did have an informant, and maybe they just gave the wrong address or something, but the whole idea that they came and harrassed the OP rather than getting a warrant pretty much means they didn’t have enough evidence for one and were hoping they’d be able to intimidate you into basically handing some over. Otherwise, they’d risk that you’d know your rights and refuse, they’d go run and get one, and you’d now be wise to it and have an opportunity to dispose of any questionable material. All the more reason to say no.
The mom gave consent to search his bedroom. Wasn’t there a recent case about whether someone living in the house could consent to a search of a housemate’s “private” area?
I also like to think that the more people who resist in the face of their threats, the less cops will use these coercive tactics to essentially violate people. It’s only because we’ve been taught to treat cops like vengeful demi-gods who can hurt us anytime we challenge their authority, that we put up with this. It weakens us as a people and makes us sitting ducks for abuse.
No means no, and not just in the bedroom. When cops hear a lawful refusal and responds with scare tactics, the way I see it, that behavior is just as unethical as it is when a guy is trying to put the moves on an unwitting woman.
On the other hand, has anyone ever been told they weren’t qualified to be a criminal because theirIQ was too high?
No, the most likely explanation is that a recently arrested informant pointed to Baboon’s house (or the house next door) and said they got the drugs there. Given that the neighbors are “sketchy”, the informant probably meant the next door house, and cops mistakenly thought it was Baboon’s house.
I’m sure they’d be interested in any drugs, money, or guns they found lying around Baboon’s house. But it looks like, now that they’ve got their look around thanks to the Mom, they realize they got the wrong house, and went back to sweating their informant.
Fernandez v. California clarified an open question in Georgia v. Randolph.
You might find an answer in Minnesota v. Carter.
10 year olds do not generally and probably mostly, have apparent authority to permit a search. If such another person does and contraband is found, no doubt it will be suppressed if charged, as these people have no actual or apparent authority to permit a search. It is up to the police to make sure they do, or they may loose.
Well, you may be detained under RS, and told you are being detained but not arrested, try to leave and you might get arrested.