Control Group
Member
And, apparently, don't have coffee cans or empty bags in my car. Which isn't written anywhere but on this thread, as far as I know. What other little rules do I have to follow if I don't want to be searched next time I get pulled over for no real reason*?The only "code of conduct" ya gotta worry about is pretty simple - don't break the law
Perhaps, but that behavior isn't illegal, and the "evidence" you describe can just as easily be evidence of someone who likes coffee as of someone who does whatever it is that coffee cans are supposedly evidence of.Bottom line, you are engaging in a pattern of behavior that is identical to that which in my training and experience certain types of offenders do
This is the heart of the matter, right here. Since when is a cop's job to determine someone isn't breaking the law? I was under the impression a cop's job is to determine when someone has broken the law. And no, it's not the same thing. A coffee can in my car isn't breaking any law, and it's certainly not obvious evidence that any law has been broken, since I've got one in my car right now, and I know perfectly well the only law I've broken lately is the speed limit. It's the whole "innocent until proven guilty" thing; I shouldn't have to prove to you I'm innocent. You don't have any right - or shouldn't, at least - to give me a hard time because I'm doing something completely legal just in case I might be a criminal. Not only does this infuriate me, I don't understand how it doesn't infuriate you.But the only way I can determine that you arent breaking the law is to investigate
This doesn't light me up at all, since I assume that when you say "working a pedo case," you mean investigating a legitimate suspect you have independent reason to believe may have committed the crime. Once you've got legit PC, then sure, search everything I own. I trust modern police methods to, by and large, be good enough that PC warrants a full search with few enough mistakes to make it worthwhile. Now, if you're saying this meaning that you examine some guy's reading habits and whether or not he's got a Sunday paper in order to determine whether or not to investigate him, then yeah, it lights me up. But I'll assume the former is the case, unless you tell me otherwise.This'll light ya up - when I worked pedo cases I would always look at the books a suspect kept around their house or wherever. Yes, me, a JBT, monitored their reading habits, just like 1984
*No real reason, in this case, means something similar to the time I was pulled over in Whitewater one night. I was stopped at a flashing red, waiting to go straight. A car came from my right, turned right onto my road, and proceeded away from me. I went through the intersection. As I accelerated up to 25, the strobes came on behind me. The officer asked me if I had stopped at the flashing red, and I said "yes," because I had. He just nodded, took my license, ran it, then came back to my window and handed it back with only a "have a good evening, sir." I found out later from the driver of the car who had turned (a friend of mine, whom I was actually driving to meet at the time), that the officer had pulled out after her because she was speeding. I happened to get between them because he hadn't closed the distance to pull her over yet, so I got stopped. Guess it's a good thing I didn't have any empty coffee cans in my car.