Speaking of police state--
I have a story- and there is no URL, and no news articles or anything. ANd I have no idea of what the facts REALLY are.
BUT it's an interesting story, I thought.
Here in Yuppieville.
My maid (who lives in a beautiful home and just cleans houses for friends because she likes the extra money which she then invests, and as she says, her gift is cleaning) has three teens, two boys. The older one (19) was coming home from work last week-- 6 pm-- and was pulled over. The cop said Get out of the car. Stevie said, what did I do? The cop said, Lemme see your license etc. Stevie said, what did you pull me over for. The cop said,
"For suspicion."
I am telling you what he told his mom and she told me.
Stevie said, "Suspicion of WHAT?"
The cop didn't answer. He looked in the car and then he said, "Will you give me permission to search your car or do you wanna wait til I get a search warrant?"
And Stevie, who apparently never took constitutional law, let him search the car ( I of course am screaming at this point) and he found nothing. So then he writes Stevie a ticket for having an expired registration (2 days before)- which he hadn't mentioned at all before.
Now is this legal??????????? Becuase if it is, I want to talk to my boys. I'm assuming he was looking for something like drugs or alcohol. But can he search like that? He made Stevie think he could just go get a search warrant at the drugstore. Of course I can't verify all this. But given the ticket that Ammo got a few weeks ago- where the cop changed the charge between stopping him and writing the ticket, and which I doubt seriously he ever would have ticketed an adult for, (Ammo was in a turn lane and the person infront of him turned without signaling, and when Ammo hit his brakes, he slid becuase it was raining- no damage or anything--- first this cop who saw it from a parking lot said AMmo was speeding and Ammo said NO I WASN:T! he never speeds- if anyhting he goes too slow, my older son- now HE speeds! ANd then the cop said ok. And ticketed him for following too close, which AMmo denies also)I'm wondering if these cops are doing some intimidation stuff with teens.
Which makes me mad as a parent. We;ve taught our kids to respect and obey the law.
If my boys are doing 80 down the road, then I want them stopped and given the book. I think it undermines what we try to teach when the cops come across adversarial and punitive. Well, life as a teen is full of these injustices of course.
BUt it's another thing altogether if they are doing illegal searches. DOn;t they need reasons for that?
Or am I missing something? |
