Illinois State cops have no crime to occupy them?

Deputy milk monitor in second grade. The best four years of his life.

I always answer "No". His reason for pulling me over may not be what I suspect. Put the ball in his court.

So to speak.

David

Something like this happened to me years ago on I-95 in North Carolina, unmarked car with lights in the grill and dashboard, and the cop in street clothes. Big lecture about my driving (which was innocent) but in the end I was told I was "free to go" with a "verbal warning".

After it was over it occurred to me I had been falsely imprisoned by a nut impersonating a cop.

On Fri, 09 Oct 2009 23:28:06 -0500, the infamous "David R.Birch" scrawled the following:

"No, sir." ---

-- Seen on a bumper sticker: ARM THE HOMELESS

A perceived nit - The handler works with his dog 24/7 for months, and was intimately involved in the training regimen, and does know the difference between a real hit on drugs or other trained contraband, and a half-hearted ' play hit' that the dog will do when bored stiff.

But he isn't going to tell you that, or the judge. If they needed probable cause, now they've got it.

He was fishing for drugs, or an opening to go for a vehicle or property confiscation because they found large amounts of "suspicious" cash or other contraband aboard - your vehicle doesn't have any rights even if you do. Some departments make a substantial income off property confiscation.

Something like 40% of all $20 bills in circulation have enough drug residue on them for a dog to hit on. And then they can confiscate it for being 'Drug Money'.

->--

left quickly.

The cop was grilling him about details on the car and trailer to see if it really was his car and trailer. The real owner would know lots of detail and trivia about their rig - If it wasn't their car and trailer, they would trip him up in a lie pretty fast.

A drug mule would just be handed the keys to a random car (with the drugs already well hidden) and a wad of cash for gas, and told "Drive it to New York, here's the address and a map with the route marked. You get paid on arrival." Wouldn't even be told what the drugs are or where they were hidden, just "don't go digging around or we can tell, and you're dead."

Oh, and if the mule was lucky, he might find registration and insurance papers in the glovebox of that car when he got pulled over, so he can try to talk his way out of there - or not. After all, he's disposable.

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In every state you have the right to deny a search without a warrant - but if you don't do it right you are waving a Big Red Flag for them to detain you and go /get/ that warrant, and they can. All cops know the local judges that will give them a warrant to arrest a ham sandwich...

It's a fine line you need to tread between keeping it a legitimate traffic stop, and turning it into a Felony Takedown, trip to the station, and requisite strip search and cavity check... Piss off the cop, and it can become the latter real fast.

Which makes it worth it to spend a few minutes being polite and civil (and not volunteering anything that was not specifically asked and/or potentially incriminating) and putting up with their Twenty Questions act for at least a few minutes before you pull the "Am I free to go?" trigger.

You play along just long enough to get them to where they will answer your question Yes, not No.

Face it, there are cops that make their carrers by looking for "suspicious" cars with out-of-state plates cruising up known drug trafficking highways in the proper direction - if you were headed south, they wouldn't give you a second glance.

It only takes one or two big drug hits for the cop to get out of patrol and promoted into Detectives, so they have incentive...

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Rule: If an unmarked police car ever tries making a traffic stop on you, Call 911 RIGHT NOW and get through to an operator/dispatcher. Explain what's going on, and let the dispatcher check it out.

There are some serious whack jobs out there, and it really isn't that hard to make a convincing fake unmarked car - the easiest way is to buy a used real one at the State Auction. (Blues Brothers.)

If nothing else, they can roll a real uniform in a real marked unit to meet you. And they have your name and cellphone number and vehicle description and location, so if you decide to pull over and it all goes south they can find you. And the fake cop.

And if the plate number on the alleged cop car you tell the operator don't match up with real state plates issued to a real unmarked police car, they'll be VERY interested in meeting this "officer". That's when you don't pull over, you start heading toward the nearest manned law enforcement station at a reasonable rate of speed.

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This was discussed on another forum. One guy said the way he declines a search is to say "Officer, I've got lawyers in my family, and if they ever found out I agreed to a warrantless search, I'd never hear the end of it."