Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
Jophiel wrote:
So nothing less than preventing immediate life-threatening harm, correct?
Yes.
Thank you. You didn't need to try to spin anything else as this is the only correct answer, period.
No spin. Just pointing out how often this is the factual case, but the initial media fueled assumptions pretty consistently manage to get it wrong. And much of BLM's activity is based on that false belief.
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It doesn't? Please explain.
Please explain how saying "cracker" creates an increase in probability that you will have items on your person or in your car.
That by itself? No. A combination of statements and actions which indicate to the officer that you're overly not happy you were pulled over? Yeah. Because sometimes people are upset about being pulled over because they honestly don't think they did anything wrong. But those people don't usually rise to the level of verbal abuse I'm talking about. People who do that usually are trying to put the cop on the defensive and/or distract from something else going on.
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Do they appear by magic? Is "cracker" a magical word that causes items to materialize? I mean, obviously it doesn't cause crackers to materialize because those are legal but are you suggesting that it makes drugs or guns or panda pelts appear?
Go ask a cop how high the correlation is between someone starting right off verbally assaulting the cop for pulling them over, and the likelihood that they have some contraband in their car is. The foolish notion is that by berating the cop right off the bat the cop will pull back and be more hesitant to look too closely. That's wrong, of course, but you'd be surprised how often people try this.
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Did you argue with him when he pulled you over? Did you insist he was profiling you? Did you threaten to report him to his supervisor? Did you call him a "cracker cop" even just once? Cause, I think that might just have changed your experience.
Yeah. That's more than just calling him "cracker", right? Again, I think you simply don't realize how frequently people who really really don't want their cars to be searched start off the police stop by berating the cop, insisting before he's even gotten to the window that they did nothing wrong, the cop had no reason to stop him, it's racial profiling, etc. That's what I was talking about. Now is it possible some really stupid person might do that kind of thing too? Sure. But that would be... stupid.
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Explain exactly how any other those things increases the risks of contraband in your car.
Sigh. Because it's behavior that people who are trying to hide something from the cop do. You're looking at it wrong. Saying or doing those things doesn't put contraband in your car. People who have contraband in their cars tend to say or do those things. They're hoping (wrongly) that they'll make the cop concerned about a possible complaint on their record for pulling someone over "for no reason at all", and will thus maybe just apologize for pulling them over, maybe give a warning, and then be on their way or something. Of course, the cops know this. Which is why, if you foolishly engage in the same kind of behavior, it's going to make the cop more suspicious, take more time looking around the car, etc.
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Because common sense would tell me that if I had contraband in my car and was pulled over, I'd be super-duper polite and not make waves.
You'd think so. But you'd be wrong. Do you actually know anyone in law enforcement? You'd be amazed at the behavior patterns that they are well aware of, that people do engage in, but that make zero sense from an objective rational person's point of view. Heck. Have you watched an episode or three of cops, or worlds wildest chases, or whatever those shows are called? Obviously, those are the most dramatic scenes they can catch on video, but from the stories I've heard from friends of mine in law enforcement that sort of thing isn't that rare. And the patterns of behavior are quite consistent. People who berate the cop for pulling them over are almost 100% either drunk or high, or they have something in the car they don't want the cop to find. So if the cop doesn't think the person is intoxicated, but the person started out berating them, they immediately start thinking about how to obtain permission to search the car. And they're pretty sneaky about doing that as well.
Again, the thing that most people don't get is that while you may occasionally interact with a police officer on a traffic stop, the officer interacts at such stops every single day, all day long. He knows the script to every scenario. He's heard every approach to a stop that exists. And he can usually predict from the first couple sentences out of your mouth which script this particular stop is going to follow. When you hear about cops "having a feeling that something was up", this is why. I just tossed out a few funny bits as examples, don't take them as gospel or anything. The point is that the cops do know what "tells" people send out. And they're very very good at it.
Edited, Aug 2nd 2016 7:59pm by gbaji