With all the recent ticket threads along with the recent officer involved shooting video, I have to clear something up.

That is, the matter of probable cause to stop.

Police can stop you for a number of reasons. Amounst these are:

1.) Any traffic violation
2.) Tinted windows
3.) No front license plate
4.) Any violation of the vehicle code

A lot of people seem to be complaining about getting stopped for the above reasons. But the problem is, the blame does not lie with the officer. The officer is just doing his/her job. In fact, officers are trained to do the above things. So for instance, if a cop sees you get in your car in front of a known drug location, the cop might follow you. And if he sees you commit a traffic violation, he will pull you over and question you on drugs. And the cop is fully compliant with the law. Now he is pulling you over for the traffic violation, but that is clearly not the true reason he is stopping you. He is stopping you because he wants to arrest you on a drug violation if he can.

And the cop is following the law by doing so.

So your beef should be with lawmakers. For instance, Nevada has no violation for front window tint. But as long as the law is in effect, the police are trained to enforce it.

 

Sometimes I listen to the State Troopers on the scanner. Every now and them, they send out a BOTL (be on the lookout) for a drug runner or money mule. They give a description and then ALWAYS say "develop YOUR OWN probable cause". This always slays me. They can pull you over anytime they want for any reason.

 

So if I get pulled over for having "blue lights"... in the middle of the day... and my lights are off... and they're YELLOW FOGLIGHTS... its the lawmakers' fault. And not the cop that was harrassing me. riiiiiight

 

I have been pulled over for all of those 4 reasons. As a matter of fact I have to go to San Fernando court to pay and try and fight a speeding ticket, then take care of my tint and front plate shieeettt.

 

I think what Sternroolz was saying was that if you have blue lights on AND happen to be driving by an area that was known for drug buys and/or drop offs, the cops would have a "reasonable suspicion" to pull you over.
Unfortunately or fortunately, it can give a lot of leeway to officers, either way.

I guess what it means is that if you do choose to violate any known vehicle codes, i.e., front window tints, missing front license plate, be prepared to be stopped by an officer for any of those reasons. And, as Sternroolz was saying, if you don't like it, lobby (call, letter writing, emails etc.) the dopes in your state capital building to allow us to have our cars the way we like.

 

I agree with stern, that they usually will have a reason to pull you over. But I think everybody will agree that there are some (maybe a lot) of police officers that have a power trip and just like to abuse it. If they see a young guy or a person they think is a punk, they might make up some kind of excuse just to pull them over and give them a hard time.

 

Yes we all agree that the lawmakers have made some lame rules. With that being said, what pisses people off are the cops and their attitudes. They should have better things to do than stop someone for window tint. Instead they do it to be dicks, because they love pulling over Hondas with exhaust for instance. I've been pulled over for my exhause being too loud, which I fought in court and won, HOWEVER, my cars exhausts' have never been as loud as a Harley Davidson. I've never seen a Harley pulled over for being over the decible meter.

Point is cops enjoy pulling over kids in modified cars. It's not a matter of doing their job of protecting the noise violation rule. It's not a matter of suspected drugs in the car. It's a matter of them being dicks. You know it by the way they walk up to the window and treat you. By the way, I'm 28, have a masters degree in EE, and am totally respectful of the police officers, use yes sir no sir, hands on the wheel lights on, etc. They are just dicks. Want proof? Look at all the recent beatings and shootings by pigs!

 

I think the original poster is saying that we, as a society, have allowed law enforcement to view us, tax paying americans, as "civilians." That is, that we need law enforcement to think for us. And that by having us submit and accept the usual brow beating during traffic (phishing expedition, revenue generation) stops we are all a bit safer. Am I close?

 

Sternroolz, great thread man. I agree that everyone overlooks the real reason. They dont understand WHY any tint is a violation but OMG what an as*hole cops are.. go do something more productive. #1 its hard to identify someone with a tint. #2 its s scapegoat reason to pull someone over to question them or to get a closer look. EXAMPLE, I was in Torrance one night in a not so great area. Cop pulls me over(I was in my dads benz) and gets me for a fused rear brake light. I start talking to him and im totallly respectful and he looks over my paper work. Comes back 10 minz later and says ok you know what, you seem like a good kid. Ill let you go with a warning but let me show you how you do it. Im like no its ok but then I was like dude he just let me go so I complied. I got out of the car and hes like oh you gotta pop the trunk cause you do it from the inside. lol so he got a freee search of my car by trying to be "nice".

Theres no such thing as a monthly quota or crap that cops have to fill. Even the shooting that happened, no one can really tell what realy happened thru descent footage b/c the police are trained to protect themselves NO MATTER WHAT and to take out the threat. If I pulled someone over and I see him reaching for something, believe you and me im gonna get crazy on his ***.

Yes theres plenty of *****y cops out there and eventually they get whats coming for them. With the 1000s of cops protecting us, if a 100 are bad thats a small fraction to generalize about.

 

Clearly you don't know any police officers! Hahahaha! How naive. It's funny.

Sorry dude, but police officers get promotions and raises based on PERFORMANCE just like the rest of us. How is a police officers performance judged? Simply put, the amount of bad guys he takes down, i.e. the number of tickets he writes. So sure there is no quota, but if he isn't writing enough tickets he will be gone.

Police officers are not here to protect and serve, they are here to generate revenue through ticketing. LMFAO!

 

No, he's correct, there's no "quota." The correct term is interaction. You are required to have a certain number of interactions with the public...

 

First, thanks for the cops who are on this forum. whatever anyone thinks about cops, they give the boards some balance when issues like this come up. And to speak up in this enviornment wen they probably will get verbally attacked is at least somewhat brave. Just in all jobs, there are good people and bad people. Unfortunetly, cops have almost unlimited power against everyone else. With that comes a great responsibility to treat people with respect and do your job correctly. Ideally, if there was a bad cop, the others would have the responsibility to weed him out, correct him whatever. We all know that doesnt happen. Just like you dont turn in your friend that smokes weed. I think if there was no video, the cop would have nothing to worry about. But there is, and hopefully he will get what he deserves whatever that is. Just like criminals doing crimes, they eventually get caught, the bad police sometimes get caught too.

This is the system we have, and it not be changing soon. I respect most cops, but the respect must be earned/proven. My friend (asian) was pulled over when he was about 21 and the cop gave him 7 different tickets. Mostly mod violations etc. Your telling me that the cop was looking for drugs? He just wanted to hassle a young minority. The cop didnt fabricate anything, but still an A-hole in my opinion. Like Ljn mentioned in another thread, the letter of the law and spirit are two different things. He mentioned that cops are biased. Duh. If I was a cop, I would pull over the harleys that litterally damage peoples hearing that ish is so loud. But have an exhaust the is legal but some cop wants to bother some kid, and he gets 7 tickets.

Anyway, this is the system we have. Deal with it or change it if you dont like it.

 

Also, cops that dont write enough tickets get pressured to write more. My LAPD friend told me that he was told to do a whole shift of just tint/plate violaters. I wish the cops did not make $$ from writing tickets, they would write less petty tickets and concentrate on real crime...

 

Inno, obviously you dont know what the hell your talking about.... My brother is a reserve and I took pc832 classes, and a cousin of mine is a Sheriff working the Rampart division . A cop is encouraged, absolutely, to write more tickets but its not where if he doesnt pass 20/month hes kicked out of the squad. Inno if you had a bad experience with the law and are forced to "hate" all officers im sorry to hear, but if you watch rap music videos and hear all your friends talk shi* on cops and that influences you then thats horrible.

lol Dude all I got to say is, if your house gets robbed or a family member of yours gets injured(GOD forbid), first thing you would do is call 9-1-1. The "PIG" hotline.

 

my car insurance went up this year because the DMV mistakenly has me for a ticket THAT I FOUGHT AND WON!!!

now i need to go thru a bunch of BS to get it off my record, which will hold up my car and motorcycle insurance!!!!!