Unfrickingbelievable...
Ya know, I've been a cop for a good while, I've written God only knows how many tickets, I've had so many folks I've lost count, talk themselves into a ticket.
I've had to drag more than my fair share of a$$holes out of a car and take'em to jail for what amounted to basically stupidity.
We have a name for it, OHBWS.
I've sat in court and played those same in car videos to a Judge who then proceeded to chew the a$$ of the a$$ I arrested.
I've had more than a few folks talk their way out of tickets by simply being polite, not groveling mind you just polite.
We catch **** all the time from punks and other unsavory types on traffic stops all the time, that is why most cops have such a low threshold for BS on 99.9% of all traffic stops.
Just work traffic in a predominately minority area and you will see just exactly why.
In the same respect you will also see that on those same traffic stops where someone acts stupid we 9 times out of 10 end up with a large crime beyond the PC for the stop.
See our experience's based upon the actions of your fellow rock dwellers makes us suspicious when you act a certain way.
Basically you are acting like a criminal, someone we've dealt with time and time again.
You can be polite and not answer questions but I do encourage you to at least respond to the officer don't sit there acting like a common doper who just got stopped for speeding and is holding, don't give off any vibes such as you might be hiding something or worse yet you are staying silent thinking over a course of action in your mind, sizing up the situation, measuring a response.
Thats exactly what will be going thru the cops mind when you begin acting like a criminal who is hiding something or looking for an out of the situation.
Expect to be removed from your vehicle for that very reason, because that is the greatest mode of escape, the courts have realized this and give us the authority to ask you to exit the vehicle and if necessary remove you.
A traffic stop is a seizure under state and federal law, it is basically a mini arrest, because you are not free to go until the stop is concluded with either a bond being given (your signature on a citation) or a warning from the officer.
During this seizure all the officer needs is reasonable articulable suspicion which is not higher than the probable cause standard but is sufficient to justify further detaining.
United States v. Wallace
Reasonable articulable suspicion of criminal activity sufficient to justify detention for arrival of drug-sniffing dog
SEARCH & SEIZURE/SENTENCING
United States v. Wallace,
Also, The recent Supreme Court opinion of Muehler v. Mena, __U.S.__, 125 S. Ct. 1465 (2005).
In Muehler, the Court held that mere police questioning does not constitute a seizure under the Fourth Amendment. Muehler, __U.S. at__, 125 S. Ct. at 1471. As long as the officers questioning did not extend the length of the detention, there is no Fourth Amendment issue with respect to the content of the questions. See United States v. Santos, 403 F.3d 1120, 1132 n.6 (10th Cir. 2005).
The officer did not need "probable cause" to detain the person for further investigation however. The intervening detention only required "an objectively reasonable and articuable suspicion illegal activity has occurred or is occurring." United States v. Hunnicutt, 135 F.3d 1345, 1349 (10th Cir. 1998).
Reasonable suspicion is determined by examining the alleged factors within "the totality of the circumstances," United States v. Fernandez, 18 F.3d 874, 878 (10th Cir. 1994), and is easier for an officer to demonstrate than probable cause.
Factors, which when taken separately may be perfectly innocent behavior, can support a finding of reasonable suspicion when taken together. See United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 277 (2001).
Conversely, "[a]lthough the nature of the totality of the circumstances makes it possible for individually innocuous factors to add up to reasonable suspicion, it is impossible for a combination of wholly innocent factors to combine into a suspicious conglomeration unless there are concrete reasons for such an interpretation." United States v. Salzano, 158 F.3d 1107, 1114-15 (10th Cir. 1998) (citations and quotations omitted). In analyzing the factors that may amount to reasonable suspicion, we must be careful to "judge the officer's conduct in light of common sense and ordinary human experience . . . [but also to grant] deference to a trained law enforcement officer's ability to distinguish between innocent and suspicious circumstances." United States v. Mendez, 118 F.3d 1426, 1431 (10th Cir. 1997) (citation omitted).
Just use a little bit of common sense and don't become the next piece of case law we have to deal with, our job is hard enough as it is, don't make it any harder by acting like a jacka$$ on a traffic stop for a simple offense, especially while carrying a gun!!!
LMAO
