It’s language, must be. As an American, I blame myself.
My statement was more about the practical reasoning of someone who is stopped while carrying an illegal substance. Refuse to answer questions, as is your right, and you might get the dog, which is a problem. If there are no illegal substances in your car, then if they get the dog, it’s not a problem.
I think all drugs should be legalized and that it should be much harder than it currently is for cops to search people and their property. If I ever come upon a DUI checkpoint, I will smile and refuse to answer any questions, and hope the cop isn’t a dick.
The dog could give a false positive and then the police would be able to use that as a reason to do whatever they want (which could include everything from searching you and your car to taking you to the nearest hospital and having the doctors perform multiple medical procedures to find drugs).
I only meant that “it’s not a problem” in that you don’t have any illegal substances. If one chooses to do anything other than comply, one is always risking negative treatment from the cops, so there could always be some kind of problem. Good cop, no problem. Bad cop, probably a problem. If only the latter didn’t so vastly outnumber the former.
A lot of places the tax money taken away buy law suits effects the funding of that department. There is always the fact that violating peoples rights means if they are charged with a crime the whole case gets thrown out. Letting criminals get away because the cops are violating rights has it’s own effect.
He may have violated the law by refusing an order to roll down the window, or not. Here’s how I would have made the determination:
“Am I free to leave?”
If they say “Yes” then just leave. If they say “No”, then I am being detained.
“Officer why are you detaining me?” [you want to get them to articulate their reason now so they don’t have a chance to make up a reason retroactively. In some situations they don’t have to tell you, but any answer you can get (and especially record) will be useful to you if this goes to court]
“Is that a request or an order?”
If “request” then I would refuse. If they say “order”:
“What would you do if I refuse?”
If they say “I would arrest you”:
“What would you arrest me for?”
If they say “refusal to follow a lawful order” then I would probably comply and roll down the window unless I wanted an arrest on my record, but not before saying immediately before doing so
“I do not consent to any searches” and I would repeat that every time I comply with an order.
I have read suggestions by knowledgeable-sounding folks to say “I am recording audio and video” in states where cops use wiretap laws against people who use video in public.
Uniformed LEOs sometimes drive unmarked vehicles with lights behind the grille instead of visible. You can see one such vehicle (an unmarked sedan with a spotlight as the only unusual piece of equipment visible) in the video for the recent Valencia Garden incident in San Francisco: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SBX2x48l4U
You realize that in that ENTIRE exchange he never once asked about drinking? Not one fucking time. This wasn’t about a DUI. This was about an authoritarian piece of shit unlawfully taking vengeance on a citizen that asserted his rights, and a half of a dozen other officers ganging up to use their authority to help. This was a repulsive display and exactly why citizens tend to be weary of cops and refrain from helping them.
What we increasingly have is one person getting stopped by cops and one or more civilians shooting video of the event with cell phones. The real lesson of this video and others like it is that video can be an effective defense against the police in many contexts. From a legal standpoint, it undermines the officers (often false) testimony and helps the innocent gain acquittal. Moreover, when police reports are demonstrably falsified, the officers in question can face more serious legal consequences than from almost anything else. Cameras are the best defense against bad cops. Since they’re no real threat to good cops, good cops have no valid reason (other than tribal “Thin Blue Line” bullshit) to object to video; the same cannot be said of guns, which really only escalate the situation. Granted, video is of limited use against actual brutality; a camera, especially one that’s not obvious, will not stop an officer from shooting me, and officers have been caught on video engaged in serious brutality and still been acquitted, but I suspect that video gives bad cops more nightmares than guns.
I find these kind of exercises a little ridiculous in terms of the basic dynamics of power. Anyone with a minimum of experience as far as interacting with law enforcement officers should understand that getting in and out of these kind of situations as quickly as possible is in your, “the citizens”, favour. There is absolutely no perfect, uncorrupted system of governance in the world as long as there are officials who have authority over you in any given situation REGARDLESS of what the law or constitution states. No point was proven here, no “progress” was made, and then the coda “Happy July 4th America” is self-righteously posted, like the USA ever truly and sincerely followed the rule of law.
