So this afternoon I was visiting a friend of mine who happens to live in one of the city's drug hotspot neighborhoods. As he, his wife, and I left in his car to go to the store, an unmarked police car pulls us over and 3-5 detectives surround the car. A couple of them came to talk to me through the backseat window while the others were questioning the driver. When everything checked out they let us go. Apparently a black guy and a white guy in the same car = drugs to them. Having his wife in the car with us might have helped make it look less suspicious. The real funny part? They told us they pulled us over because they saw me put on my seatbelt. And all this time I thought it was against the law not to use seatbelts.
Maybe next time you'll put your seatbelt on before you start driving and stop blaming your friend for it. Racist.
I wasn't driving. I was sitting in the back seat. I guess cops think putting on a seatbelt is a sign you are nervous.
Your friend shouldn't drive with you in the car anymore until you're smart enough to put your seatbelt on before you're cruising down the road. And stop blaming your friend for being black, racist.
Because most of the time white people in that part of town are there to buy heroin. Pretty obvious racial profiling. Only wrong. My friend told me, "Now you know what niggers go through!"
Well that was an unexpected twist. They pulled you over because there was a white guy in the car? So, did you make it home with the dope, Dope?
Maybe it's the general trend of more and more cops trying to push people around, and not racism, that you experienced?
Indeed. Your friend should've looked back at your wife in the mirror and said "Aw now, don't you worry none, Miss Daisy. We'll get this straightened out right quick."
Giving people tickets for not wearing seatbelts is cops pushing people around. Pulling a car over because they saw a passenger put on his seatbelt?
A good rule () taught to teens is never break two laws at once. If you're speeding don't drink at the same time. If you're smoking a joint don't run red lights. When me and my friends used to smoke pot riding in a car 100 years ago, we'd always 'put on our seatbelts' first to preclude spoonfeeding grounds ("probable cause") for the cops to pull us over. At least we would have if they'd invented seatbelts back then.
I got pulled over once 'cause my friend in the back seat saw a cop parked on the side of the road, pointed and yelled "COP!" We actually weren't doing a damn thing wrong, but I don't blame the guy for pulling us over!
Gives them all the excuse that they need. I don't know what goes on in their heads but if they found nothing no harm done. If they found drugs or a pipe bomb their 'hunch' would have been right.
No man, you're doing this all wrong. You're supposed to be filled with RIGHTEOUS INDIGNATION about how your liberty was trampled upon, and how this cop was clearly abusing his power to attempt to frame you out of the rights guaranteed by the Constitution of our great nation.
It makes perfect sense....think like a cop: guy is frantically putting on his seat belt means he doesn't want to give the cops a reason to pull him over. Does he have an open bench warrant? Drugs in the car? Taking someone hostage? Sure wouldn't hurt to take a minute to check it out. Cops pull people over on I-20 + I-95 for minor things in Georgia all the time....quite often they find a truck-full of drugs/Mexicans etc.
And seeing the guy putting ON his seatbelt means he was riding with it OFF in the first place, and only putting it on 'cause he saw the cop.
Y'all are coming at this all wrong. The police don't need a reason or probable cause. The Supreme Court of the United States has determined that the police can pull you over at any time for any reason. You just can't be detained for more than a "reasonable" length of time unless there's some sort of infraction justifying it and precedent has determined that "reasonable" is 15 minutes. The heart of the issue is that while you are secure in your person and vehicle against an illegal search, it goes back to the age old mantra that driving on public roads is a privilege granted by the state and not a right.
We had a story recently, can't remember the details, but some broad filed a complaint because police pulled her over for slowly cruising around a neighborhood. It turned out she was looking for her son, who was out later than he was supposed to be, but to the cop it looked like she was casing places to burglarize. Of course instead of laughing it off and asking the cop to keep an eye out for her boy, she got all belligerent and later filed a complaint that she was a victim of racial profiling. On a completely unrelated note, last Wednesday I was at a party in someone's back yard that ran on a little after 10pm. Because there's an assload of people and only one bathroom and because a lot of people would rather not have unnecessary drunk people tromping around in their house, I found a discreet corner of a fence to pee in. As I finished up, I turned around to find a big, fat, bald, belligerent rookie cop standing there with a flashlight going "What do you think you were doing? It's illegal for you do piss outside." and all that. He knew I'd had a couple drinks and was trying to push my buttons so he could arrest me. I said "I'm sorry, officer. I'm on private property and I thought I could do what I wanted there etc." I stayed super polite and after a couple minutes he didn't have anything he could really bring me in for. So then I went out to the street and let the air out of his tires.
That all makes sense, but I wasn't "frantic" at all. And I didn't see the cop. I rode with the seatbelt off maybe 200 feet to the end of the block. I don't even think seatbelts are required by law for adult passengers in the back seat.
Many years ago I had an AF buddy do 30 days in "Correctional Custody" for peeing outside at a crowded party. A neighbor saw him, and said not to piss on his car. Instead of laughing it off and assuring him he wouldn't piss on his car, my bud got belligerent. Police came, and it did not end well. The irony is the party was to celebrate our other buddy getting out of doing 30 days in CC for a DUI. So, we had one guy in our unit out on a Friday, and another one going in on Monday!
I don't understand advanced math, but when most people say "make a right," I think it implies 90°. If it's 180°, it was "turn around."
