Pulled over by Law Enforcement in the middle of the night!

[ramairthree]

Yep, I got pulled over.

I went past a blacked out Charger with no lights on sitting on the side of the road I did not see until I was almost on it and passing it.

Blue lights.

I pull over, put it in park, papers in hand on steering wheel with window rolled halfway down.

The officer walks up, very close to car and only far enough up I can barely see him in peripheral vision turning my head some. "You were going xx in a 55"

"Sorry, just heading home from work."

"Just hand me your license, give me a minute, slow down, and I'll give you a warning."

"Sure, thank you."

Back to car.
Back to my car.

"Here you go, drive safe."

"Thank you, you too."

No rude behavior.
No being a dick.
No lights in my eyes.
No questions about my permit.
No ask to search.

I must be a very boring old guy now.

To top it off,
was I in my 375hp coupe? Nope.
My 420 HP convertible? Nope
My iconic 1969 500 foot lbs of torque muscle car? Nope.
My 4x4 huge power blacked out heavy duty truck? Nope.

Based on weather, I had my wife's boring little luxury SUV, with soccer/horse Mom stickers on the back, etc.

[markm]

Eh.... Probably just making contact and could tell you weren't a drunk and checked that you had no warrants.

Shit... I was in my pickup heading out to shoot and got pulled over for expired tags a year or two back... The guy was asking me if I had any warrants in a manner that was like... just come clean now. I was thinking "WTF?" Do I look like a wanted man?

[SilverBullet432]

Lmao. My cousin refused to a search after being pulled over for expired inspection. so they brought the dogs and (im assuming they would have to have gotten a warrant??) searched his car... The cop kept telling him that " boy were gonna find that dope!" And "tell us now!" Wtf... I told him he should file a profiling case..

[markm]

I've never been asked to consent to a search.

[ramairthree]

I have grown my hair out a ton since retiring from the .mil.
I look like I should be wearing a butterfly collar and some side zip boots with polyester bell bottom pants.
I guess I am lucky I did not get the dope search treatment.

[thei3ug]

Maybe your self image is not completely in line with how some people perceive you.

[brickboy240]

I get the same treatment but I am a late 40s white guy with short hair, no tattoos or piercings and I am usually in an old well maintained Volvo.

Does not surprise me. Look normal, act normal and cops do not beat you, taze you or mace you.

Black people....take notice! LOL

[Onyx Z]

I stupidly consented to a search about 10 years ago when I was around 20.

I was in my black Camaro Z28 and it was the middle of the night and not a soul was on the road. I was heading home from a friends house as I pass a cop at most 5mph over the speed limit, not doing anything excessive or out of the ordinary. I keep a watch in my mirror and don't see him turn around so I keep on my way. Then a few miles back, I see him turn around. I'm thinking "you've got to be effing kidding me". So he pulls me over and runs my license, etc. and asks to search my car.

I stupidly consented to a search. I didn't know any better and I didn't have anything to hide. I was just a 20 year old kid from the burbs...

Just as he begins searching, another officer pulls up. Then a K-9. Then another... there was probably 4 patrol cars total throughout this whole ordeal.

One of the officers put me in the back of his car to "keep warm". I was not detained, but It was cold that night and I was in shorts.

Then they all proceed to RANSACK my car. At this point, I thought they would "find something" and I would be going to jail for nothing. I was scared to death.

Once they were done, the office pulls me out of his car and says "have a nice night. Oh, and get a front license plate. Some cops will give you a ticket for that."

I have the utmost respect for honest LEO's, but to this day, I still think this was pure harassment.

FWIW, I've never done any kind of illegal drug. Never even smoked pot. Never looked like a thug, always been clean cut, no tattoo's, etc.

Now I drive a F-150. LE doesn't even give me a second look... :D

[brickboy240]

Unfortunately, yes...your appearance AND your car does factor in to how cops will treat you when you get pulled over.

It shouldn't...but it does. Hey... did not make the rules but I sure have to live by them if I want to avoid trouble.

Know that going forward and life will be much easier for you if you get pulled over.

[chuckman]

Unfortunately, yes...your appearance AND your car does factor in to how cops will treat you when you get pulled over.

It shouldn't...but it does. Hey... did not make the rules but I sure have to live by them if I want to avoid trouble.

Know that going forward and life will be much easier for you if you get pulled over.

One of our local cops, a good guy and great cop, drives an expensive BMW...but lives in the 'hood. HE gets pulled over from time to time. He accepts it as being "it is what it is."

[26 Inf]

You consented to a search, which as you mentioned is not a good idea.

Most folks are not aware that consent can be revoked at anytime - 'Hey fellas, that's going a little overboard, I don't want my car disassembled, I withdraw my consent.'

Of course if you are sitting in the back of a unit that is difficult to do :(

[Moose-Knuckle]

I pull over, put it in park, papers in hand on steering wheel with window rolled halfway down.

The officer walks up, very close to car and only far enough up I can barely see him in peripheral vision turning my head some. "You were going xx in a 55"

"Sorry, just heading home from work."

"Just hand me your license, give me a minute, slow down, and I'll give you a warning."

"Sure, thank you."

Back to car.
Back to my car.

"Here you go, drive safe."

"Thank you, you too."

No rude behavior.
No being a dick.
No lights in my eyes.
No questions about my permit.
No ask to search.

I must be a very boring old guy now.


Two words, W H I T E privilege . . .



:jester:

[SteyrAUG]

My favorite is still the time I got pulled over at about 3am with a car full of MAC-10 my partner and I bought during a business trip in Iowa. Stayed up late talking to my grandmother (another night owl) and we decided to get a jump on the drive rather than try and sleep for 3-4 hours and go in the morning since we were wide awake.

Well we damn near had the interstate to ourselves so we were probably doing about 80-85mph. So we get the standard questions as I hand over ID.

Officer: Any guns or drugs in the car?
Me: MAC-10s
Officer: Are you serious?
Me: Yes.
Officer: Aren't those illegal?
Me: Nope
Officer: (Realizing he has pulled over two guys with a car full of MAC-10s at 3am by himself) "Well you boys slow down."
Me: "Yes Sir."

Technically M-10s are illegal as Iowa is not a NFA state but we purchased them from a PD armory and they transferred to our out of state FFL/SOT. Amazingly enough the transfers were approved the same day so we just became the shippers, we expected to have to wait a few months. I guess the examiner for Iowa isn't very busy.

But it was pretty funny.

[ChaseN]

It amazes me sometimes when I read about different LEO experiences across the US. I work uniformed patrol in DC and I can tell you that it is nearly UNHEARD of here to just randomly ask drivers to search their car. Even in cases where we arrest the driver of a car we stop (DUI, no license, bench warrants...all quite common in DC) we don't ask for permission to search the car unless we think there may be evidence of the crime we are arresting them for in there. We'll typically release it to a sober friend with a driver's license with nothing more than a plain view search for our own safety (essentially just what you can see from a causal look through the car). Owing to the simple demographics of the city, most of the people we stop and arrest are black, so there's certainly no "white privilege" involved...

I would be interested to see how many people on here have been asked by LE to search their car for no apparent reason. Even before I was an LEO, I was stopped a number of times in the DC/MD/VA area when I was pretty young and was never asked for consent to search. I'm pretty close friend with a number of LEOs in nearby jurisdictions, and I don't think that's a common thing to do anywhere in the region. Personally, I wouldn't even want to randomly ask people for consent. I and most everyone I work with don't go into every citizen contact "looking for an arrest."

BTW that MAC 10 story is hilarious! Can't say I blame that guy for just letting you go on...nowhere is the phrase "discretion is the better part of valor" more true often times than in LE

[Moose-Knuckle]

BTW that MAC 10 story is hilarious! Can't say I blame that guy for just letting you go on...nowhere is the phrase "discretion is the better part of valor" more true often times than in LE


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIFRsGSSKYw

[ChaseN]

Bwahahahaha!

[jpmuscle]

Idk. I would have been pretty hard pressed to not inspect the goods, for verification purposes naturally. Steyr may have said MAC-10s but he could have really meant nuclear fissile material. Why? Because MAC-10s.

[C-grunt]

No one I work with has ever randomly asked someone to search their car on a stop. That being said I do know the highway guys here do sometimes because of the high amounts of drug trafficking here in southern Az.

Though I do work with a guy who is AMAZING at talking people into letting him search their bags. He only does it to tweekers and suspected burglars (who are usually tweekers) not normal people. I find it insane that these people, knowing they have drugs or other illegal items in their bags, give him permission to look in the bags. And its not like he tricks them or anything like that. Its always a several minute conversation about crime in the area and why he wants to look in the bag. Then he plainly asks if he can look in the bag and most of the time they agree. I think he might have Jedi mind powers.

[ChaseN]

+1 we tend to want to look in bags alot more often than cars, and I don't consider myself to be particularly skilled at it, but literally EVERYONE I ask says yes. It's baffling.

I did just think of one small exception to the whole search consent thing here. DC has a number of no truck zones near high profile federal buildings due to the VBIED threat, and we enforce one in particular QUITE aggressively. Whenever we make a stop we'll normally ask the driver to open the back up for us to take a glance, and it always seems quite odd bc probably 75%+ of the box trucks we stop are driving around completely empty.