Driver's failure to laugh at odd question during stop not reasonable suspicion | Hacker News Reader

Driver's failure to laugh at odd question during stop not reasonable suspicion

fourthamendment.com

132 pointsfortran77133 comments

Pulling out of a parking lot, I looked left, looked right and started to pull out only to narrowly avoid getting rammed by a cop who ran a stop sign. He jumped out of his car and started screaming at me to pay better attention to the road. No emergency lights, no siren. Just (from my perspective) someone who apparently ran a stop sign and got angry when someone else was in his way. You never know what kind of day someone's having or if they're about to go off on someone. Now, make the consequences of catching someone on a bad day 10x worse because they have a badge and a gun. Fortunately for me, I don't think I even got a ticket, but people have been shot in dubious circumstances many, many times. I'm not about to crack a joke or laugh at one in a police interaction.

I once saw a cop whip an illegal U-turn in the middle the main interstate-connected road of a small town, no lights or warning whatsoever, on a street that wasn't crammed full but was very much not empty, then nearly hit someone pulling out of a fast food joint who'd presumably already looked left and saw nothing close but a cop car going the other way, so thought it was fine to pull out ("You're supposed to check twice" sure, but there's still a window where you aren't looking one direction or another as you're pulling out—you can't not have that, it's entirely possible they did check twice). Cop pops lights and pulls the car over, probably a bullshit reckless driving citation for nearly getting hit by the cop. I felt so bad for the poor driver who did nothing wrong. Guess whatever they were heading toward wasn't so important after all, too, if they had time to stop that car for a bullshit reason.

Between that and a few other not-quite-that-bad incidents, I now treat cop cars as the least-predictable cars on the road. You never know WTF they might do, and you'll be the one in trouble if they cause a wreck.

> they have a badge and a gun

... and immunity from persecution for shooting you.

... and a statistically vastly higher chance, compared to the average population, to desire committing murder and hurting other people.

Bad mix. Police (in the US) is fucking scary.

> persecution

I think you meant prosecution as they are definitely not immune to persecution nowadays--at least from the public.

Yes!

You need a dashcam

Dashcam doesn't stop bullets.

You need a mad max style technical.

Funny how police departments cry crocodile tears every time the public discusses whether so many of them are needed, or about right-sizing their budget. "Don't cut back on police! There's crime everywhere!" But, then they have to resort to these tricks and gotcha-questions just to try to obtain reasonable suspicion (let alone probable cause to make an arrest).

If they so desperately want to find crime, they can, you know, pick up the phone when someone's car gets broken into. Plenty of that going around.

Not a unique situation but instead of crying foul, the PD for my city has responded to budget right-sizing by cutting the things people actually want them to do. Enabling them to focus their smaller budgets on the things people were trying to get them to stop doing in the first place.

It is such an infantile response.

Did they announce this? If so, how was it worded?

One aspect of the theory that police are just not doing their jobs that really infuriates me is how it's seemingly done in secret. If so many police feel so strongly that they can't do their jobs or whatever their reasoning is, just come out and fucking say it! At least we'd all be on the same page about what's going on, and maybe we could start working towards a solution.

But personally, I think that any solution is going to involve more money going to police departments, because solutions usually require money. If we want better cops, we need to pay them more and train them better, both of which cost money. I am sure there are things we could do to make policing cheaper, but I don't see how better cops won't require more money.

It was not officially announced. But as an example they've been doubling down on efforts to issue citations to cyclists who break traffic rules, but have also gone on record as saying they don't have the $$ the enforce traffic rules for cars. When pushed on this they said it was due to the budget cuts and they need to prioritize.

Edit: I'm all for both of these, but the cyclists citations don't have much popular support. While the driver citations do.

Who decides how policemen spend their time?

in our city, the police department it would seem.

The city council has asked them to have different priorities, but that's not what happens.

The age old question - who polices the policemen?

That would require actual police work. Of which most of these officers were never trained in. They are trained to stop and interrogate, not seek truth and investigate. Some do, most don’t. Most setup checkpoints or wait behind bushes to catch people in the act rather than do any investigative police work. The one area where this kind of work is still practiced (thankfully) is homicide. Everyone else is playing ref.

Were in this transition period. For a looog time cops were told to try and convince 'undesirables' to leave. As in swarthy types who are lower class than the local powers that be are comfortable with. And we're now telling them not to do that anymore. They hate that because we're taking the fun part of the job away.

And more recently we've decided that they shouldn't bother with piddly drug users. They hate that because it was easy pickings. Instead we want to focus on property crime. That's work. And worse courts and the politicians don't take that seriously.

>seek truth and investigate

Based Buddhist policeman.

I had assumed a separate classification of job did investigation - the detectives

Rightfully so. It’s the only department that does “investigations” outside of their own internal affairs. This sucks because police aren’t trained to investigate properly. Some attempt and succeed but in general it’s just not something they practice. It’s more about stomping on your rights until you admit fault to something. Which is highly effective to normal citizens.

There are a lot of really good cops out there, but when I hear of police boasting about their ability to "read people" I get scared because to me this is no different than thinking you are psychic.

As a neuro-atypical person (likely aspergers / high functioning autism), I most likely will not "get" that you are joking. I will be extremely pissed off that you interrupted my routine and are taking up my valuable time. I will want the encounter to end as quickly as possible. I'm probably also nervous because I watch an unhealthy amount of YouTube videos about traffic stops gone wrong. So yeah I'm not likely to see the humour in the situation. I'm just hoping that I did everything that was expected of me, that I don't say anything stupid and can get the ticket and move on with my day already.

> There are a lot of really good cops out there

People say this, but are there? To me, part of the set of requirements to be a good cop is to not only pay lip service about disliking "bad cops" but to actively work to clean the house. If as many good cops really existed and really disdained bad cops, you wouldn't see the bad cops skating peacefully through life the way they do.

The police officer that lives on my street has become a good buddy of mine and is a good person based on my experience. I can't necessarily say for sure he's a good cop because I've never seen him work, but I would bet money he's a good cop as well. He's never shown me anything that would indicate a violent side, even when we've gone out to bars together and I've seen him drunk. He is very kind and caring to his kids, and seems to have a happy marriage with his wife of many years. He has talked about the homeless population before and seems to talk about them with a degree of compassion.

He initially started as a police officer about a decade ago and then left to become an insurance adjuster. Apparently that insurance job did not bring in enough income and ended with false promises, so he ended up back as a police officer after a couple of years. I get the feeling he doesn't enjoy the job; they make him work crazy overtime hours and he has to work night-shift, which makes maintaining a family very difficult. Point being, not everyone joins the force to unleash their abusive side without repercussions, or whatever the current stereotype is. This man is doing it simply to support his family.

I hope that helps answer your question some. Human beings are complex and painting all of them with a wide brush is a lazy way to justify hating someone that may not deserve it.

I mean I know a number of people who are cops who are good people. But when I push them on the existence of bad cops they always hand wave it away as either being a) rare or b) not their place to fight against.

On a, what I've found is their definition of "bad cop" has a much higher bound than mine. They always mean the stereotypical psychopath cop. They'll rationalize the egregious behavior and not include more run of the mill rule bending as even being meaningful.

On b, this was my main point. It's easy to excuse it all as long as one is willing to push the responsibility to others. Or worse, they push back on me asking if I'd report or speak out against someone breaking rules at my work. Well yes, actually. And I'd expect that of others.

So my point was that in order to be considered a "good cop" I expect them to at a minimum a) adhere to laws themselves and b) actively work against other cops who do not follow a.

Thanks for clarifying. I'll have to push him on those questions next time and see how he responds.

He was one of the police officers during the George Floyd protest riots in Portland, so I've got to hear some of it from his perspective and nothing he said struck me as a "red flag" of any sort. Then again I'm not one to "take sides" on any matter either. I don't care what the court of public opinion wants, because it often lacks empathy or putting oneself in the other person's shoes. This tends to make me an outlier in most controversial topics, so maybe my opinion of what makes a "bad cop" will not necessarily match yours or others.

By this logic, we'd also have a bad time trying to find good doctors, at least in the countries I know a bit (no idea about the US). Malpraxis is definitely not a thing around here.

> People say this, but are there?

Yes. Anyone who takes a moment to think through the numbers logically recognizses this. And the two replies that my comment have gotten pouncing on me saying that, including yours, is the reason why it must be said.

The thing about police is that it's one of those things where the routine interactions and police work, which is representative of the vast majority of what goes on, is boring and uneventful. There is no reason for it to ever make headlines.

But it only takes one incident of corruption or one costly mistake and everyone is talking about it. That's a good thing, it needs to be addressed. But it really skews public perception and makes people think that that kind of stuff is way more commonplace than it actually is.

I don't know. A cop who is exemplary in every way and yet remains silent about, turns a blind eye to, or defends bad cops on the force is not a good cop in my book.

Exactly. And while I know many otherwise good people who are cops, not a single one of them will do more than pay lip service to "bad cops". For starters, their bar designating someone as a "bad cop" is always far too high.

Why, exactly, does it need to be said?

We have a mountain of evidence showing that, even when there are good cops, the moment they cross paths with bad cops, the bad cops either convert them to their side or get them removed from the force.

These are not marginalized people who need their stories told. These are members of a quasi-military group full of self-proclaimed neo-Nazis with effective legal immunity from murdering random citizens of our country, and, as another comment aptly noted, a significantly higher propensity for violence and unwillingness to accept that other people have a right to live—or do much of anything else, it often seems. Moreso if those "other people" are people of color, queer, disabled, or otherwise marginalized.

"But there are lots of really good cops!" just screams of apologism and a desire to salve the egos of the poor mistreated fascists.

I have not done any empirical research into this, but I have noticed that there are certain police departments you don't see having tons of issues in the news, so my theory is that in some departments the culture of having high integrity and doing the right thing might be the norm.

You sometimes see this come out where one department refuses to cover for another department or its officers doing bad things. Obviously the goal would for that to be the norm instead of the exception.

There are a lot of bad cops out there.

4x the chance of domestic violence.

https://www.inquirer.com/philly/news/homepage/20140910_Domes...

I have never laughed at a police officer during a traffic stop. I'd assume, as a driver, laughing at an officer is a straight line to a ticket or, at worst, an arrest.

> at worst, an arrest.

Well, that plus some unearned violence.

Why bother. Just bring a dog. It can't testify in court and your interspecies hearsay about its thoughts are the rubber stamp for a warrant and RAS.

Good fucking luck cross examining a dog.

I don't think I'd laugh at that question. I'd just be confused and quiet as I tried to figure out why anyone would ask such a stupid question.

I'm so oblivious and literal that I would likely not laugh.

I sometimes wonder if people have no internal thoughts in their head other than what someone else is saying, many times, even in high stress, I will be thinking about how to respond after I have gathered the essence of the argument.

Long lists generally lose me two items in.

There's never been more evidence that cops need a psychology degree with deference to questioning their own judgement.

I wouldn't laugh either. Being stopped by a cop is a high-stress event. The funniest joke in the world wouldn't be able to make me laugh while I'm dealing with the situation.

That’s a bs reason. Reasonable suspicion needs to be on an articulable particular crime. It cannot be a suspicion of some unknown crime. But cops will give any bs reason to make an arrest. Don’t fight them at the scene. Fight them at court.

You could literally have "firearms, drugs, cats, dogs, alligators, and weapons" in your car and still not be breaking any laws at all. None of those things are a priori illegal in all, or even most, cases.

> It cannot be a suspicion of some unknown crime.

Yep. This is the exactly problem - these stop-and-search with dubious probable cause excuses are all about hitting their numbers without having to work too hard. They are "fishing expeditions".

If you have been pulled over for seemingly no obvious reason, they are looking to find something to arrest you for already.

The future of 100% driverless vehicles would be great since there'd no longer be any reason to pull anyone over. The driver of the vehicle would be Apple or Google or Uber or Tesla. The occupant could be happily hammered on whatever drugs they like without causing any risk. Cops would have to find a new job.

I don't believe for a second it would go like this. "Broken tail light", "Old version of FSD software", "Erratic FSD behavior, potentially modified FSD".

Just new reasons for probable cause, with the same goal: to write tickets and make arrests. I don't want to say all, but many (and in places, most) traffic stops are about hitting quotas and not about public safety.

Open container alcohol laws apply to all passengers in a car, not just the driver.

If nobody drives any more, there's no point to that.

In the US at least, there's many, many, many laws still on the books which haven't been relevant for sometimes over 100 years, but nobody ever repealed them.

This sort of stuff gets conveniently remembered when someone is being persecuted (sometimes for good reasons in the case of a serial killer or organized criminal, or for bad reasons like someone who is just being critical of a public figure).

I for one hope to one day drink wine with my wife while watching movies in the back of our self-driving car, on the way to Disneyland from Chicago.

There is a weird cultural trait in the US whereby traffic officers think every vehicle they stop is potentially key to uncovering a massive crime organization.

In Europe, the guy behaves more like a school teacher who caught you cheating.

Enough with the "keep your hands on the wheel", and the BS with the mag light.

In this case, a person who committed no crime was pulled over, and then arrested for laughing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AAx-td3uzM

They eventually got off of all charges, but the process is the punishment.

EDIT

Forgot to add - the only correct answer to a police officer asking questions is "I do not answer any questions without my attorney present". Also, for a traffic stop, courts have ruled that once they give you back your license, you are free to go. The police can lie to you and try to get your consent to be there after that, but you can just drive off. They may want your consent to stay for a dog to sniff your car or something. Don't be bullied - just drive off.

IANAL but these two don't go together:

> Forgot to add - the only correct answer to a police officer asking questions is "I do not answer any questions without my attorney present".

> once they give you back your license, you are free to go

The pickle is that once you exercise your rights as indicated in the first part, the second part is unlikely to happen. You are correct that you don't have to answer questions, but it is also possible that you will just be taken into custody to properly adjudicate the interaction at the station. In some circumstances, this can be beneficial for you.

> Don't be bullied - just drive off.

This gets people killed. If the police want to bully you, you don't have a lot of options. Driving off from the police is a great way to get shot through your window.

We have rights, but those rights are enforced in courts and generally not at police stops.

Saying that you will not answer questions w/o a lawyer present is not a reason for them to hold you. They can of course break the law and use that to detain you and if they do that you should not resist.

If you answer the cop's idle questions about drugs or weapons in the car, then you are inviting the cop to analyze your answer and use it as an excuse to get inside of your car or arrest you, and inviting more problems. Refusal to answer the question and asserting your right is not a suspicious action, and they are legally required to stop asking your such idle questions at that point.

Once you are handed your license back, the stop is over. Your detention is over at that point and you are free to go.

Driving off is not arguing with the police - it's going about your business. If you consent to stay after the stop is over while they bring a dog, then you are basically consenting to a search of your car.

All of your answers are correct, in a court of law. A traffic stop is not a court of law. Task #1 at a traffic stop is to make it home in one piece.

> Refusal to answer the question and asserting your right is not a suspicious action, and they are legally required to stop asking your such idle questions at that point.

This is...not how traffic stops work. For all intents, it is safer to assume the police office stopping you knows little or nothing about the law, civil rights, or the Constitution.

> They can of course break the law and use that to detain you and if they do that you should not resist.

> Once you are handed your license back, the stop is over...Driving off is not arguing with the police - it's going about your business.

These are potentially at odds, for example. If the officer doesn't know/believe/understand that handing your license back constituted the end of the stop, in his mind you have just fled a crime scene. In his mind, you have escalated and given him a reason to use force. You (or your heirs) may prevail in court that he was "wrong," but on the day of the stop the officer can make that much-later victory Pyrrhic.

> We have rights, but those rights are enforced in courts but generally not at police stops.

This. Common advice is that you should never argue with the cop, you argue with the judge instead.

A better version of this is: "my attorney has advised me not to answer your questions without her being [physically] present." I believe it is more polite and indicates better that you actually have an attorney (even if you don't).

Before driving off, you should always depart any conflict with "am I still being detained or am I now under arrest?"

> "am I still being detained or am I now under arrest?"

I wouldn't say that last part for a couple of reasons. Mainly, phrasing it as if those were the only two options might make a cop decide to arrest you. Also, those aren't the only two options. You might just continue to be detained.

I think asking "am I free to go?" is a better question.

Absolutely agreed. The politer the overall interaction, the simpler the departures.

> indicates better that you actually have an attorney (even if you don't).

IANAL, but: If you don't have an attorney, don't lie to a police officer and say/suggest that you do.

I tried not talking when officers alluded I had kidnapped my own toddler (that I have custody of). When contacting attorneys about unlawful detainment, I was basically laughed at by multiple attorneys for not "explaining."

Whatever you did, talk or not talk, lawyers will say you were wrong. To cover their ass and put the blame on you.

Anyone who says they can tell someone is lying is bullshitting themselves imo. Where do they get this belief from? I wonder would any of them do better than a coin flip in a double blind trial.

>Note that the officer said he got that from other officers, not from official training.

This is something that surfaced in the public discourse during the George Floyd protests. The average police officer doesn't receive as much formal training as most people think. Most police academies last less than a military boot camp, and a rookie is expected to get most of their training on the job, which is how this guy was taught this nonsense.

Ego usually.

With cops, I wouldn't be surprised if they've had woo-heavy bullshit training about spotting liars.

[EDIT] TFA specifies that in this case, however, it was not from official training.

And it's nihilist:

Same officer, another case, same phrases, there he testifies the warning sign was the laughter. https://x.com/OrinKerr/status/1715764780567572945?s=20

It's about power.

I don't mind police generally, and the bitter negative majority take really turned me off for 30+ years.

But they're right. It's about power.

The bitter negativity just results from seeing what happens when you're on the wrong side of that. I've been lucky enough to avoid it.

Compounded with lots of opportunity for confirmation bias.

In a similar vein I was asked by an immigration officer at the airport what I would do if the US went to war with the country I'm from. It threw me completely off guard.

I told him that it's lucky that solid democracies seldom go to war against each other, but that I would probably flee to the Bahamas to avoid it.

> I told him that it's lucky that solid democracies seldom go to war against each other

Democracies are relatively rare (in the history from which one might assess rates of going to war), but don't seem to go to war against each other any less often than countries in general when considering other factors associated with propensity to go to war, like geopolitical alignment.

It's unlikely you would ever be asked that question again, but I would try to think of a response where someone could not interpret that as that you might violate Bahamas's imigration laws (entering illegally or overstaying a visa, because then if you were willing to do that with the Bahamas, then you might do it with the U.S.)

I have no idea what response the authority is looking for, but I assume that "I'd return home" would be relatively inoffensive.

But what is the right answer to this question? It seems like a no-win one.

“Oh you’d return home to fight against this country?”

I agree- I don’t know what “right answer” the immigration officer was expecting.

"I would apply for a visa in another country."?

"Oh, so you're not committed to living in this country? You know US Visas are highly sought after and we expect those who are selected to make full use of them."

I'm pretty sure that plenty of autistic people would fail that test. As would I if I was in a bad mood.

Everyone fails the test. The same cop deemed laughing to be suspicious, too.

https://twitter.com/OrinKerr/status/1715764780567572945

> When Officer Smart returned to the driver’s side window, he asked Ross whether there were any “firearms in the vehicle, narcotics, specifically heroin, crack, marijuana, cats and dogs.” Ross looked straight ahead, paused, and then “kind of giggled and said no.” Officer Smart observed that Ross continued to appear very nervous and continued to reach towards the center console and move his jacket around. The backup officer arrived soon thereafter. Officers Smart and Foreman had become sufficiently concerned that Ross might be armed as a result of their observations and interactions with Ross that they then asked Ross to exit the vehicle.

This is the modern equivalent of the "Swimming test" for detecting witches[1].

Being nervous when questioned by a cop is a perfectly rational response. Lots of people giggle when nervous. My wife, for example, laughs every time I hurt myself[2].

[1] https://www.epoch-magazine.com/post/sink-or-swim-the-swimmin...

[2] I sort of hope this is a nervous response rather than her finding me hurting myself genuinely funny

The quote leaves off the punchline, which is that the person did have drugs and a firearm in the vehicle.

Plenty of people do, but it's still illegal to search them without reasonable suspicion of a crime.

Not saying that any of this was warranted, but that actually says Ross "[reaching toward] the center console" was the suspicious thing. It turns out Ross had a gun and heroine in the center console, along with a bunch of money in his pocket. So it could be that he actually was okay with him laughing?

Either way, what a manipulative tactic.

USA is amusing :-D also asking "do you plan to co commit terrorist attacks" on visa / migration form is literally "xD" material.

Reminds me of that time that Dell (iirc) required you to specifically check a box that stated that you wouldn't use the computer for terrorist activities at checkout.

I know the urban myth, but I have travelled to the US dozens of times over the last 20+ years, have had a couple of different types of US visa, been on the TSA precheck and Global Entry programmes so I have filled in a lot of visa and immigration forms and that's not ever been a question on any form I've had to fill out.

Edit to add: Here's the I-94W form which people normally tell this story about https://i.stack.imgur.com/NhlML.jpg

The second question is the one which asks whether you are a convicted terrorist or nazi war criminal but it doesn't ask whether you're planning anything.

I don't know about currently but they were on the ESTA form, if you were traveling from a visa waiver country. I guess it's possible that you don't see them if you're on a "real" visa instead of a waived one? And my information isn't up to date so they may have removed them. But it's absolutely not myth, those questions were real.

Rereading it I think it is dumber than I previously gave it credit for. I guess I always shut off my brain and just saw "blah blah nazi Germany" and checked no.

I applied for a US visa about a decade ago and was faced with the question (it literally blew my mind, I probably still have a screenshot of it somewhere) and this year my SO was filling this electronic visa and he faced something similar afair...

It absolutely is not a myth. I've had to fill in forms along with all other passengers with that question and other similar questions, when traveling to countries such as Australia.

N-400 asks something along these lines. It doesn't say planning; it's broader, really. Any membership in an organization that wants the US to be a single-party state counts.

https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/forms/n-4...

Part 12, question 10-11: "Have you EVER been a member of, or in any way associated (either directly or indirectly) with: The Communist Party?; Any other totalitarian party?; A terrorist organization? Have you EVER advocated (either directly or indirectly) the overthrow of any government by force or violence?"

Ironically, most of our political leadership doesn't qualify to become a US citizen; they've almost all advocated for the overthrow of Iraq's government by force. I'd imagine in practice some governments are more equal than others here...

Those kinds of questions are so that it’s easier to deport because lying on those forms is a very direct path to deportation.

Do you plan to could be no when filling out the form but you still do it later. The form will still be correct

"Do I really look like a guy with a plan?"

"Not this visit"

Pretty smart actually, wrong answers would give them the opportunity to either deport or arrest people, and then see what else they can find. Not supporting that, but the idea itself isn't bad...

I thought laughter was a sign of nervousness? Crazy way to pass judgement on somebody IMO

Yeah, this effectively becomes an "are you like me?" cultural test, which is just overflowing with implicit bias.

It's a "heads I win, tails you lose" test.

Yes, as a natural nervous laugher myself I had to course-correct later in life and learn to have gravitas. It is never beneficial to laugh, even if your counter-part is emotionally intelligent enough to know that it's nervous laughter because:

1) Your counter-part may not be emotionally intelligent enough

2) Deep-down, even if you know someone is showing you a nervous laugh it takes yet another level of emotional discipline to not be annoyed by it (like parents telling their kids "it's not funny".)

I can't stress enough how much extra trouble I got myself into by being a nervous laugher and no one telling me any better. As a child when you nervous laugh, the typical response from an adult is typically ~ "Oh yeah, let me double down and show you how not funny this situation is" which implicitly is trying to be a punitive lesson in life to change your behavior.

All this to say, this kind of police training/question is just cops making up pseudo-science and, as someone else pointed out, "heads I win, tails you lose" situation.

I'm immediately guilty in a lot of situations because I have some kind of automatic laugh when it's a high pressure scenario. I'm telling the truth but the laugh makes them think I'm lying, which then just cranks the pressure up higher as I have to convince them I'm not.

> I thought laughter was a sign of nervousness?

The cop in front of you decides what's nervousness or not.

No reaction ? Straight to jail

Nervous ? Straight to jail

Laughing ? Straight to jail

Laughing nervously ? Guess what, straight to jail

I don't think it's the worst heuristic of all time, especially just for the individual's awareness of the situation, but it shouldn't be legal grounding for anything

> Officer Smart testified that he regularly asks individuals a question concerning possession of “firearms, drugs, cats, dogs, alligators, and weapons” at vehicle stops because it “helps [him] read people’s body language and their demeanor.” … He further testified that he was trained by other officers to infer that an individual who does not laugh at such a question is nervous about either firearms or narcotics … and that he typically receives a “laughing response” to that question ….

Yowza.

There really needs to be oversight and review on behavior like this. Someone could've nipped Smart in the bud, he'd been treating people this way for a while by the time he got caught.

Pretty sure they just suspect people of drugs for other reasons such as criminal history, the clothes they are wearing, etc, that isn't valid for a search and then they just make up some lame excuse for why they were suspicious if they are ever questioned about it in court.

I am having difficulty locating the specific case. I see a citation of "United States v. Holloway, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 187752" but Google does not yield a valid result. Does someone have a link to the full legal opinion?

>Note that the officer said he got that from other officers, not from official training.

Well under trail, that officer needs to name names and get those other officers on the defendant list.

the judgment here is funny, but there is no algorithmic way to validate "suspicion", is there? presumably it requires "judgement" -- so the idea that we can make a list of specific "suspicious behaviors" or a list of behaviors that cannot be considered suspicious is ridiculous

Why US allows such clowns to enforce law ?

There are no national standards, so every city, county, and state get to determine the requirements for being a police officer. There's typically no educational requirement beyond high school. The prospect of being able to legally bully people obviously attracts some amount of people of a certain mindset. So if you don't try to filter for that, you get this situation. There's several other factors, like our concept of "qualified immunity", "thin blue line" attitudes, and powerful police unions that contribute to the environment where you can do whatever you want with impunity.

This assumes the job of policing in the U.S. is, in fact, to enforce the law. It could also be several others things, such as raising funds for local government (primarily by targeting less privileged members of society). Another common argument is that they are primarily employed to reinforce existing power structures - See violence against anti-police violence protestors. Our government in general (and Supreme Court in particular) are loathe to put almost any limits on police behavior, or to enforce consequences for bad behavior. There is largely bi-partisan agreement on this, and the stranglehold the two-party system has on elections prevents alternatives.

It would only take once of being forced to arrest the struggling dad for late child support or one of the harmless homeless persons for vagrancy before sane persons would question their vocation.

Because no one of appreciable intelligence and morals would take the job. It's the last resort for people who are otherwise unhireable.

Speak only for yourself. If it paid more than what I am doing now, I would take the job. If you attract better people with higher pay, you can choose better people.

In my country, the entry-level pay is above the median salary, and according to a recently retired police chief, new hires are dumber and dumber. They used to demand a score of 11 (14 to be officer) in the early 90s, they simplified the exam, and still hire people who score lower than 8 nowadays. He saw a new hire flashball his own foot.

I don't think it's pay related.

If policing paid more then yes, it would attract higher quality applicants. But it's terrible pay for a terrible job, so it's the last resort for those who aren't sociopaths.

Because there is a shortage of people who want to work in law enforcement.

Because clowns also wrote the law.

When I worked at startups i interviewed people for swe jobs. I used to ask "what is your favorite 4 letter word?" and compare responses to their interview performance.

Would be a red flag for me about the company, that my performance is judged by unrelated factors that I have no control of.

That's a staggeringly terrible question. I hope you're joking but I suspect you're probably not.

If someone asked me that question in an interview that would be a red flag for me.

Just to explain further, this question is bad because it is a random classifier and a magnet for potential unconscious bias.

It's a random classifier because it doesn't correlate in any way to any possible thing they could be doing as part of their job.

It's a magnet for potential bias because it's super-easy for the interviewer to deceive themselves into thinking they are gaining some insight about the candidate while they are actually just projecting their own feeling about whether they like the candidate or not.

I'm into board games, so I would say "game". What might that indicate about my performance?

Nothing at all.

Why do interviewers believe they are psychologists?

"I waver between fuck and cunt. How about you?"

Interviews can be stressful for interviewees. It might be tempting take it the opportunity to perform nonconsensual psychological experiments but just be kind and professional.

I never got those responses, but I think that swearing during an interview is not a good idea

It's not and everyone knows this. Nevertheless, you asked that question. It puts people in an awkward position, intentionally. Either be ok with swearing and be clear about that, or don't ask these questions designed to put people on the spot. That's neither kind nor professional.

So is lying, and those are most definitely my favorite four-letter words.

That's a really stupid interview question. I would be angry to have wasted my time with a company that asked me that.

Maybe that would have saved everyone some time, which is a good thing

I don't get it, how does this help? Is it common for people to have a favourite n letter word? I don't.

"Stop." Doing this.

I have

I don't understand

EDIT: In all seriousness, anyone have an idea of _what_ they're thinking when they ask this? I don't get it, at all. Yes it's a horrible interview question, but...what do they even think they're getting out of it?

Poop fart and code

I no longer work at startups or interview anyone.

Lol

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