I have done a lot of surveillance of police. And a disturbing, self-serving creed which I have found is common among (at least some populations of) police is that: “There are no innocent people!” If somebody arouses your suspicions, they are certainly guilty of something, and it is the perceived job of the cop to figure out what that something is. And most cops don’t have extensive legal training, so that “something” often is only that they “didn’t like the look” of the people, or that they “weren’t acting right”, or some such bullshit. And many of them lack the self-awareness to really consider what the sources of these intuitions may be.
I don’t have any love for lawyers, but I can respect that at least they need to have some idea what the laws are before they go making up weasel stories
