Thinking about Viffers "Warning To High Stakes Travelers" thread and my own situation today, I was just wondering what sort of circumstances you've had to deal with?

We were visiting my fiancees mother who, unfortunately, lives in a neighborhood in the city that is on the serious decline. I'm a block away from the house stopping at a stop sign when I see one of those "unmarked but obviously a cop car" full of cops (coming in the other direction) lock up their brakes and wait for me to pass.

As soon as I do, they get behind me, hit the lights and chirp the siren...
OK, whatever. Pull over. Three non-white plainclothes cops wearing sheilds on neck chains pulling over a white boy with out of state tags in a crap area. Hooray.

One cop starts hollering "lets see the hands" then "put your hands on the wheel". Comes up, pulls the drivers side door open, tells me to get out of the car and put my hands on the hood.
WTF???
OK, cooperate. Another cop comes around and grabs my wrist and holds it on the hood of the car (I'm a pretty big guy so I guess he wanted to make sure I didn't start fighting them) while the third one jumps into the compartment and starts searching my car- no request, clearly no cause to do so. He just hopped in and started tossing my car.

They keep asking if I have anything illegal on me- no...
I told him my wallet was in my right pocket (suggesting that he might want my ID)- he looked surprised and asked why he would want my wallet, like maybe I was trying to bribe him I told him. "My ID".
He gets my wallet and searches it too.

After a couple minutes, the cop who had been searching the car comes out and says "He's clear" and the other one says "Sorry (my name). My bad..." then instantly, they hop into the car and drive away, with me standing there on the side of the road with an enormous "WTF Just Happened?" look on my face.

They weren't abusive, they didn't steal anything, thankfully it wasn't some setup where they justified a bad stop by tossing a little weed under the seat, but seriously. This sort of thing is just awful. Thankfully, I get to go home to an area where the police fear people who can afford to hire lawyers. I got my first very benign dose of what minorities living in **** neighborhoods have to deal with as far as police go. I couldn't imagine living in an enviroment where state sanctioned agents of the government did this to me on a regular basis and got away with it 100% of the time.

uh.....ya....you matched the description of someone they were looking for, more than likely a murder/dealer/scumbag.


plain clothes cops, in unmarked cars, riding around in threes, are not looking for traffic violators or even to just beat some "minorities". Cops like that are in that neighboorhood for a specific reason. And what exactly did they do to you that was so bad, other than offend your delicate sensibilities?

Aside from offending his delicate sensibilities they thrashed all over his civil rights without even an explanation. Even if there was a murderer loose, to treat a citizen like this is totally uncalled for.

Just wait til your fiancees mother gets hit with a stray bullet in a drug/gang related shooting. I'm sure the police have no good reason to do their jobs.

And nothing much more suspicious than a white boy in a ghetto btw.

Took a **** on his rights - this tends to be frowned upon in a free society

Wow, this is so melodramatic.

The cops were probably looking for someone, they pulled you over, found out you weren't who they were looking for, and moved on.

This isn't a bad cop stop, this is a good one, in and out. They suspected you were dangerous, found out you weren't, and let you go with an apology and no bull****.

What do you mean? If they suspected he was a dangerous person of interest, how would you change this scenario? Also, can you point to me the exact rights violated? Thanks.

Probably.

But we don't know. I'd bet anything that if this happened to you guys there's no way you'd be like "standard, that's a good cop who was just doing his job."

Suspected he was dangerous based on what? Assumptions you made after the fact.

"If they suspected he was a dangerous person of interest"

Why did they suspect that? Let's pretend for a moment that...well...I guess we have to pretend they got his license plate number confused with someone else's, along with the make and model of the car, which makes no sense. Then, they pull him over and, perhaps instead of searching his car, they ask him for his license?!? Omg, "you're not John Doe! You're Billy Richards, you're free to go, citizen!" That's how that should have played out.

The exact clearly enumerated constitutional rights violated: His right to be secure in his person, papers and effects against unreasonable searches (see Amendment, fourth)

The other, less clear constitutional rights violated:His right to privacy, his right to be unharassed by the government while traveling. (see Amendments 4 and 9)

Well, nothing would be admissible in court anyway. I'd say the cops had a warrant for some dangerous guys arrest, treated the situation as such, and realised they ****ed up with the wrong guy and let him go. I think its important to have some perspective and think about how this could have happened.

So the cops have a warrant issues for this guy's arrest, they pass a guy driving along the road, in, presumably not the car that the guy who has the arrest warrant out on himself drives, and go 'OMG THAT WAS HIM'

It's far more likely that they went "lets see if this ****er has any drugs on him" and everything proceeded as told in OP.

Fwiw, the constitution doesn't say "these rights can be violated so long as the evidence gained is not used in court", it says "the people have a right to be..."

These rights are waived though once he's considered a suspect. And I'm pretty sure people drive other people's cars, perhaps stolen cars, and given the aggressiveness they showed initially, its probably safe to assume they were looking for someone who would fit this description.

They treated the situation like an arrest, which is standard protocol. Mix ups happen. Like someone said, white guys in black neighborhoods look as much alike as black guys in white neighborhoods. They probably jumped the gun for a search, assuming it was the person they had a warrant for. Yes, this is a **** up, but lets show some perspective, its a small **** up. Even if they found something bad in his car, any lawyer worth his salt would get watchmaker off.

Like I said, if this was a standard traffic stop, this is unacceptable, obviously. context matters. If they were searching for an armed suspect, this is standard, except the early search before confirming identity.

So, someone commits a crime in your neighborhood, you better not drive through it, otherwise you've apparently waved all your rights, and are subject to searches. Sounds more like London in V for Vendetta, or Orwell's 1984, than America.

A cop jumping the gun and doing an eyeball search for 20 seconds before his partner confirmed identification probably doesn't deserve references to 1984. Orwell probably wouldn't favor the association either. How many "HITLER = BU$H" jokes did you used to make?

Does 'eyeball' search mean something that doesn't sound like what it means? Is tossing someone's car an eyeball search. The way 'eyeball search' sounds is that its a search by just looking into the vehicle. I'll admit I'm unfamiliar with the term, though. If this is an eyeball search, what's a physical search? Rectum checks and semen samples?

I have to agree with Taso here, this is simply unwarrented. A quick I'd check and they know this isn't their guy. And also, not to pick apart words, but the op alluded to his car being tossed, not a quick 20 second eyeball search. Big difference.

My fiance's brother has caught two stray bullets. My opinion hasn't changed.

yay for fear leading you to wanting to give up your rights

and yay for racial profiling

Do you call the police when you see black people in white neighborhoods?

The story in the OP isn't an example of racial profiling btw.

Curiously I wasn't responding to the OP, but rather to the post I was quoting.

Cops "doing their jobs" is basically the only reason there are "drug/gang related shootings" in the first place. DUCY?

I actually don't really know what you mean PVN.

So you're saying that the poster was racially profiling?

I think he's making a broader political point that if drugs weren't illegal/enforced there would be no need for gangs in the first place.