Never talk to the police

Dr. Hess wrote: There's a thread on HDForums.com now concerning searches. So, if I understand this, if the thug with the gun says "May I look in your (trunk/car/back seat/saddlebag)?" then the correct answer at that point is "Am I free to leave?" Please be advised that [disclaimer deleted].

The correct answer to "may I search [anything]" is always, always no. If they have probable cause they don't need permission. If they have permission, they don't need probable cause. If he's asking, he doesn't think he has probable cause. "Am I free to leave" will more-or-less work, but is the C- answer. The bummer is when the cop says you're free to leave, but the car/bike/whatever isn't until the sniffing dogs get there.

The "free to leave" thing is really more for interrogation. A custodial interrogation requires Mirandizing the detainee if what they say is to be used against them. One of the tricks is two or three cops surround a guy and start asking questions. When his lawyer moves to suppress the stupid things he said, the cops testify that he could've walked away; they weren't detaining him. Then you get into this he-said-she-said about whether the circumstances would make a reasonable person think he was free to leave. Asking flat out just eliminates all ambiguity.

By the way, Doc, that was an awesome disclaimer. You really ought to think about law school.

Thanks, Billy :). I worked at it.

There is a law school about 6 miles from my house. If I didn't have to go to 3-4 more years of school, become an shiny happy person (certain nurses would tell you I was there already) and be around other lawyers, I'd do it. I have a feeling that I could strike sheer terror into certain professionals. I'm sure I'd be quite successful in the "pay me to go away" extortion racket.

I got stopped once in my Europa by two of Houston's finest. They never asked me and I never consented. They just told me to stand over there while one of them went through my car, damaging the center arm rest in the process. I mentioned to the one standing next to me that I did not consent to that search and the answer was like "so what, we're looking for drugs."

what is a proper response to a request to look at the door vin tag? (happened to a friend the other year)

Dr. Hess wrote: Thanks, Billy :). I worked at it. I got stopped once in my Europa by two of Houston's finest. They never asked me and I never consented. They just told me to stand over there while one of them went through my car, damaging the center arm rest in the process. I mentioned to the one standing next to me that I did not consent to that search and the answer was like "so what, we're looking for drugs."

So what was the result of that illegal search? I don't mean did they find drugs, but what did you do about it?

I have started to get used to being pulled over. My train gets in at 1:50 am and everyone knows only drunks are out at that hour. I get pulled over once a week by one of four agencies. In the last six weeks I've been stopped for 2 under the limit, a headlight that loooked like it was going out, and my favorite, your eyes looked like you may have been drinking. I was going 50 mph, and he was going the other way at about 50, but he could make out my eyes. I have become quite sarcastic the last few times.

Apexcarver wrote: actually ive been wondering what the answer "officer, i gotta take a dump like you would not believe" would lead to

I would love to pull that one, but I don't want to face the concequenses.

I need to try "I'm going to the airport to pick up a friend/family/whatever on leave from Iraq" That one might just work. And it just could be the truth, my father is over there with a private sector job.

carguy123, the result was: They didn't find anything because there was nothing to find, they got back in their car, I got in the Europa and noticed that they broke my arm rest. They were gone. What are you going to do? File a complaint? It's Houston. I was about 23 and I was lucky they didn't shoot me. They stopped me because I was almost speeding.

Another time, my roommate and I were riding our bikes through Houston after dropping his sister off at the airport. She flew in to be with her boy friend, Jimmy Page, who was doing a concert. Maybe you've heard of him. Anyway, after dropping her off at the airport, we rode through downtown Houston looking for a historic bar. We couldn't find the street. At a stop light, I noticed that there was one of Houston's finest in the lane next to us and 1 car length back stopped with no one in front of him. His backup arrived and they pulled us over. My friend had a knife that was 5" long. They had a plastic ruler that they were bending to make it look like the knife was 5-1/4" long, which would be the "too long" part. Finally, they determined that the knife was 1/4" short and they were all very disappointed. They told us the reason they stopped us was because we were riding Harleys through Houston at night.

aussiesmg wrote: Cruise control is my best friend

I hear that...too bad all my cars in the past 5 years have been without working cruise...

Clem

One of the funniest getting pulled over stories happened to one of my best friends. He was driving pretty late on a weeknight and got pulled over, knowing he had done nothing wrong. So the bullE36 M3 excuse the cop gave was that one of his taillights were fading. The car was a crappy beater early 80's 4dr Cutlass Supreme, and one of the taillights was turning slightly pink, but barely noticeable. Anyway, this was his beater car and he didn't really clean it...ever. So the cop asks if he can search it, and Quinn had nothing to hide so he let him. So as the cop was rummaging through the garbage in the passenger side floor board, he stumbled upon the rag that Quinn uses to check his oil, which happened to be an old pair of tighty-whiteys. The cop picked them up, looked at them, then realized he was holding an old pair of underwear with brown and black streaks all over them, and proceeded to freak the berkeley out. I really wish I could have seen that.

Here's an interesting thought.

cop: Can I search your car?

me: no, am I free to leave?

By responding like that have I just given him probable cause?

refusing consent to search cannot be used as probable cause for a search. a lot of cops like to pretend that they can, but the truth is it will get thrown out if really tested in court.

Dr. Hess wrote: ...They told us the reason they stopped us was because we were riding Harleys through Houston at night.

Rightly so, you could've been accountants or dentists.

I was with a friend one night on our way home from York, PA (we lived in a town 15 minutes south). He drives a white Corolla S with a DARE license plate on it ("Dare to resist drugs and alcohol" plate - it's black - kinda cool).

He noticed immediately upon getting on 83 that there was an undercover cop car behind us. I told him to relax and just do the speed limit: we did nothing wrong. He drove a few miles per hour below and above (depending on whether he was paying attention or not), but no more than 3 mph.

As we approached a narrow "Cattle Chute" area where they were doing major construction, I looked to our right and saw two marked cars getting on right behind us. 'That's weird', I thought.

The second we hit the cattle chutes, BAM! All three of them lit us up. One went in front, the others blocked interstate traffic. Needless to say, we were bewildered. I just told my friend to remain calm as I reached into his glove box for his registration so that we could get going on our way when I looked back and saw an officer running up the side of the car with his gun drawn.

"Get your hands where I can see them!"

Yeah. He was looking for a guy who drove a white Corolla S with DARE tags that just murdered someone and fled from the police. The perp was black and we clearely weren't, so he let us go with very few questions. He was quite nice actually. He just asked if there was anyone in the car, took a glance in the back seat, gave us his card, and told us we'd probably get pulled over again before we got home and for us to do the same thing we just did.

Two of our other friends, who were in a car in front of us and watched the part until they stopped us, wanted to go back and try to get pulled over again.

Dr. Hess wrote: I got stopped once in my Europa by two of Houston's finest. They never asked me and I never consented. They just told me to stand over there while one of them went through my car, damaging the center arm rest in the process.

Doesn't everybody know that the armrest in a Europa is NOT the padded cover to a storage console? Colin would never add the unnecessary weight of a hinge and a hole!

Oh, he would add the hole alright.

But if he made it adjustable, you'd just adjust it wrong.

There actually is a hole under there so you can get access to some of the stuff in the middle, like the dollar store rubber snake that's used as shift linkage. But the padding is glued or screwed down, I forget. It wasn't after Houston's finest doughnut muncher got through with it. I glued it back down afterwards.

I watched those vids posted above on utube. Pretty interesting stuff. Makes you want to say " " everytime a cop says anything at all. "Nice day." " ." I always laugh at the newspaper reports that say Billy Bo Bob was arrested for possession of X after he consented to having his vehicle searched afer a "routine" traffic stop last Thursday.... That cop up north that had the dead ex-wifes and missing current one: Now you know exactly why he doesn't say a word. He knows. He's also still walking around and even got his guns back, sort of.

Oh, there was a thug here with a gun and badge. He was the K-9 cop. The one with the "trained" dog. He would bring the dog and tell the dog to jump on the door of the car. Then he would call that "alerting on the vehicle" and that was good enough for whatever else they wanted to do at that point. He also had this terrible habit of picking up women at the bar, taking them home, putting the date rape drug in their drinks and raping them. I think he's in ass-pounding prison now.

confuZion3 wrote: I was with a friend one night on our way home from York, PA (we lived in a town 15 minutes south). He drives a white Corolla S with a DARE license plate on it ("Dare to resist drugs and alcohol" plate - it's black - kinda cool). He noticed immediately upon getting on 83 that there was an undercover cop car behind us. I told him to relax and just do the speed limit: we did nothing wrong. He drove a few miles per hour below and above (depending on whether he was paying attention or not), but no more than 3 mph. As we approached a narrow "Cattle Chute" area where they were doing major construction, I looked to our right and saw two marked cars getting on right behind us. 'That's weird', I thought. The second we hit the cattle chutes, BAM! All three of them lit us up. One went in front, the others blocked interstate traffic. Needless to say, we were bewildered. I just told my friend to remain calm as I reached into his glove box for his registration so that we could get going on our way when I looked back and saw an officer running up the side of the car with his gun drawn. "Get your hands where I can see them!" Yeah. He was looking for a guy who drove a white Corolla S with DARE tags that just murdered someone and fled from the police. The perp was black and we clearely weren't, so he let us go with very few questions. He was quite nice actually. He just asked if there was anyone in the car, took a glance in the back seat, gave us his card, and told us we'd probably get pulled over again before we got home and for us to do the same thing we just did. Two of our other friends, who were in a car in front of us and watched the part until they stopped us, wanted to go back and try to get pulled over again.

my dad was in a situation like that back in the late '70s. He had a week end pass and hitched from Norkolk, VA up to upstate NY. Him and his friend were stopped in MD cause they resembled the suspects in a rape case. Then at one point they shared the Passenger seat of a vette and driver was doing blow, all the more reason to never get involved in hitchin a ride

My best friend was driving through Georgia on the way back to his house in Jersey from a spring break trip to Florida with his brother when he decided to see how fast an '01 Honda Civic LX would go flat-out (106, for those who were wondering). The Georgia state trooper didn't get him on radar, but saw the front end of said Civic almost hit the pavement because my friend hit the brakes so hard. My friend said he just asked for his license, and said "Do you know how fast you were going?" And my friend said "Nope, speedometer's broken." The cop looked at his license and said "New Jersey, huh? Have a nice night, kid."

This is the same kid who got caught smuggling two bottles of Absinthe into the country from Europe and somehow managed to get away with it.

Apexcarver wrote: actually ive been wondering what the answer "officer, i gotta take a dump like you would not believe" would lead to

If it's over 100mph in Oklahoma they take you to jail and then let you use the toilet.I found out the hard way.....

I dunno. I'm usually pretty cooperative with the cops, and it's gotten me out of a lot...I mean a LOT of tickets. It's nice to have that "I KNOW MY RIGHTS AND YOU DON'T HAVE THE RIGHT TO..." blah blah blah attitude, until you're getting wailed on with the business end of a mag light.

I have gotten 3 warnings from cops. First for chirping the tires in my old accord in Ithaca before before I learned how to slip the clutch on hills. I was 18, still on the 6 month probation period when you first get your liscence, and on my way to a job interveiw.

Then twice last summer, within 2 weeks, at night, undersuspision of being drunk.

First of these 2 I was driving near the Cornell campus just after mid-night during the week between finals and and graduation. I had a turn signal and my liscence plate light was out. He was driving a Charger, and it took all my restraint to keep from asking him if his car had a Hemi

Then I was going thrue Vestal at night on a Friday and I slowed down slightly at a green light. So the cop pulled me over to make sure I was sober

vestal? ugh....

wayland/cohocton is the worst.

neon4891, i guess the cop expects sober drivers to punch it when they see green. A drunk driver couldnt be coming down a side street about to run the red.

And the fact that I was wearing a wide brimed hat and I didn't see that it was green till I looked up after I bearly touched the breaks