Suspicious behavior is not a crime, and law enforcement is required to have a reasonable, articulable suspicion of a crime in order to detain people.
In theory, yes.
In practice, yes, with many caveats.
LE doesn't have to articulate that reasonable suspicion at the time of the detention. They can come up with that suspicion years later when it comes to deciding in court whether the evidence from that traffic stop can be suppressed. This is assuming that the warrantless search even found anything, the suspect didn't accept a plea deal in lieu of going to trial, and the charges weren't dropped just before trial.
A working system for this sort of thing would be more like:
* The officer needs to record that reasonable suspicion at the time of the detention.
* All of these reasonable suspicion detentions are recorded, along with outcomes. This becomes evidence for reasonability presented in court. An officer with a low hit rate suggests that the suspicion in generally unreasonable, and they are just fishing.
* A 20 minute timer is started at the start of a traffic stop. If the officer can't articulate the reasonable suspicion at the 20 minute mark, detention is considered plainly illegal, and qualified immunity does not apply. This prevents keeping people on the roadside for a hour waiting for the dog to show up.
* Similarly, the hit rate of the police dogs needs to be recorded, and low hit rate should make any evidence from them inadmissible.
For any of this to happen, we would need to start giving standing to supposedly "unharmed" suspects that just had their vehicle torn apart and hours of their lives wasted without charge. Currently, the courts seem to think that a little wait at a traffic stop and an fruitless illegal search that is never seen in the courtroom is no damage at all.
Wouldn't the suspicion -- the observed fact and presumed implication -- need to be recorded before the traffic stop?
I suppose you could have a reasonable suspicion stop, but it would have to be something like "a hit and run just happened nearby, no vehicle description", and you witness a car with a smashed grill and leaking radiator fluid, but not breaking any traffic laws.
Reasonable suspicion might develop over the course of the stop, e.g. driver is super nervous, the back seat is full of overstuffed black duffel bags, there is a powerful chemical air freshener odor, and the vehicle has just crossed the Mexico border.
The fun doesnt stop there, check out 'civil asset forfeiture' when you have a chance.
Also, if you read TFA, it seemed like the owner of a truck and trailer had to spend $20k getting his stuff out of impound when his employee was wrongly arrested. Seems like an innocent judgement isnt everything we think it is.
The State of Florida will charge you $75/day for your incarceration, even if charges are dropped, dismissed or you are found not guilty.
Not paying these fees is a Class C Felony in Florida, punishable by up to 10y in prison and/or a $10,000 fine.
One data point, and a highly regional one at that, I know.
10-14 min.: Keep an eye on this employee; may be developing slipshod attitude.
14-15.61 min.: Employee is an efficient worker, may sometimes miss important details.
Exactly 15.62 min.: Smartass. Needs attitude counseling.
15.63-16 min.: Asswipe. Not to be trusted.
16-18 min.: Employee is a methodical worker, may sometimes get hung up on minor details.
More than 18 min.: Check the security videotape, see just what this employee was up to (e.g., possible unauthorized restroom break).
Y.T.’s mom decides to spend between fourteen and fifteen minutes reading the memo. It’s better for younger workers to spend too long, to show that they’re careful, not cocky. It’s better for older workers to go a little fast, to show good management potential. She’s pushing forty. She scans through the memo, hitting the Page Down button at reasonably regular intervals, occasionally paging back up to pretend to reread some earlier section. The computer is going to notice all this. It approves of rereading. It’s a small thing, but over a decade or so this stuff really shows up on your work-habits summary."
--Neal Stephenson, _Snow Crash_
In a time when adaptive cruise control is ubiquitous, this is so egregious.
- Cardinal Richelieu
I remember one guy they hired to sit and pull people over all day on the highway who said the same thing "I can find something wrong with every single vehicle that passes by. I can literally pull anybody over that I want." IIRC he had things like a corner of a mudflap being broken off, or some trivial insanity like that. The big one in Illinois was having any air freshener hanging from your mirror.
> Give me six lines written by the most honest man, and I will find something there to hang him.
-- Richelieu
There is no US state in which weed is legal. Some states don't enforce it, but you are breaking federal law when you smoke it.
No states enforce federal law, nor should they. To legalize weed, those state removed or deactivated state laws also on the books about marijuana production, distribution and consumption.
People get whipped up to support laws but don’t see that more is just worse, especially the petty ones, even if they notionally correct for some bad behaviour, because they allow selective enforcement.
Idled your vehicle? (Illegal in the UK no idea about the US)
Which is fine, EXCEPT that it wasn't the *posted* speed limit, it was the *gazetted* speed limit (that is, the signs were incorrect and driving to them was illegal
In my state alone, it is illegal to do things like:
* Hold stud poker games by charitable groups more than twice a year
* Keep an elk in a sandbox in your back yard
* Serve both beer and pretzels at a bar or restaurant simultaneously
* Swim naked in the Red River from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m
* Wear a hat while dancing or at any event where a dance is happening
* Lie down and fall asleep with your shoes on
Yes, these are actual crimes in the state I'm in. If you think those are absurd, you should see some other states criminal codes; for example, in Alaska, it is illegal to appear drunk in a bar. No, really, I'm serious. So you literally can't live your life without breaking the law somehow. I'm pretty sure Legal Eagle has an entire video (or more than one) dedicated to downright stupid laws like these.
In a just world, these laws wouldn't exist, but, well...
Edit: just wanted to add that I can't seem to find actual legal citations for some of these but they may be county or city ordinances. Regardless, they are still stupid and still crimes from what I know.
I can't speak for where you live, but in America, there are many, many traffic laws. They differ greatly by jurisdiction. Most of them are not enforced. Sometimes explicitly -- for example, in my city, they recently announced they would no longer detain people for specific minor traffic violations -- but usually, it's implicit which go unpunished. It's also selective. By creating an unseen web of violations, the detaining officer is given all the necessary tools to make each stop as painful or as peaceful as they'd like.
Furthermore, in the areas of business owner and employee it's even worse because of the vague, contradictory, and expansive commercial code plus the rest of applicable city, county, state, and federal laws that apply too that sometimes criminalize trivial transgressions with occasionally excessive penalties. There's a whole book about it: Three Felonies A Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent
I'm not one for no regulations or "all gubberment bad", far from it; the core problem is the almost complete lack of effective guardrails on malicious enforcement and prosecution.
And you are misrepresenting the situation of what is paid out.
As proved by the fact that you have no evidence.
There’s no value in treating you with respect. You don’t warrant it.
You’re the worthless product of two awful people who never should have met.
If you deem them to be illegal - the onus is on you to prove that, in a court of law, whilst you are unemployed because the employer sacked you for disobeying their instructions/orders
It's all cool to be on the internet saying things like that, but when it comes to reality, I DOUBT you would do anything other than acquiesce.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/11/20/punishable-by-deat...
"Tend to"
Do you have any citeable evidence of this being an actual thing, or is it just vibes?
Are you really unaware of city settlements for police misconduct?
Let me turn the question around- can you name a single example of a police department, union, or office paying out a settlement? Has it ever happened?
I said, and I will quote "If the officer is acting within the policy/training they are given by their employer (and that includes not being told to not do something) then it's the employer's fault, and we (the taxpayer/ultimate employer) are liable for that."
Citation: https://lawrencekstimes.com/2023/03/01/tran-case-settles/ Tran’s criminal case was prosecuted under former DA Branson’s administration; however, it has impacted the policies of District Attorney Suzanne Valdez, who took office in January 2021.
The DA’s office did not have a formal, written Brady-Giglio policy until Valdez implemented hers in January 2022.
Valdez’s Brady-Giglio policy asks law enforcement agencies to share information about “allegations” of misconduct made against their officers — not just “findings” of misconduct.
I wanted a citation of "even when the officer is well outside training and policy"
Because I cannot find any such occurrence
As to your demand for me to cite things that I never spoke of
there are the following cases (the ones I have highlighted indicate that not just the city were liable, meaning that officers/unions/insurance also paid out) https://policefundingdatabase.org/explore-the-database/settl...
> In November 2023, a settlement was reached between protester Eli Durand-McDonnell and two police officers who arrested him during a demonstration outside the summer home of Leonard Leo, a leader of the Federalist Society.
Police arrested Durand-McDonnell in July 2022 on a disorderly conduct charge amid protests over Leo’s role in efforts to overturn Roe v. Wade. The Hancock County district attorney later dismissed the charge, citing the need for caution when political speech is involved. Durand-McDonnell subsequently filed a federal lawsuit against Officer Kevin Edgecomb and Officer Nathan Formby, alleging false arrest and violation of his free speech rights. Details of the settlement were not publicly available as of early November 2023.
> The family of Fanta Bility, an eight-year-old girl who was fatally shot by police outside a high school football game in 2021, reached an $11 million settlement with the Borough of Sharon Hill, Pennsylvania, as well as its police chief and three former officers involved.
Police opened fire after a verbal altercation between teens escalated into a gunfight. Police gunfire inadvertently struck Bility and injured three others, including her twelve-year-old sister. Officers Brian Devaney, Sean Dolan, and Devon Smith were fired and later sentenced to probation, pleading guilty to reckless endangerment. As part of the settlement, Sharon Hill agreed to implement enhanced officer training, particularly concerning the use of deadly force. The Bility family, who established the Fanta Bility Foundation to honor her legacy and advocate for police reform, emphasized that no settlement could erase the tragedy but expressed hope for healing and change.
[Not a payout] > In April 2023, as part of a settlement in a class action lawsuit over the treatment of demonstrators in 2020, former Minneapolis, Minnesota, police union head Lieutenant Bob Kroll agreed he would not work as a police officer or law enforcement leader in Hennepin, Ramsey, or Anoka counties during the next decade.
The lawsuit alleged that Kroll’s actions as a de facto policymaker led police to use excessive force against demonstrators in the protests that followed the May 2020 murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis Police Department officer. Under the terms of the settlement, Kroll also agreed that he would not serve on the Minnesota Board of Peace Officer Standards and Training, and that he would testify in any trials related to the suit.
And, because people are saying "insurance will pay it"
> In February 2023, the insurance carrier of the City of Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, agreed to pay $2 million to Clinton Jones Sr., whose son was fatally shot by an undercover police officer.
In 2015, then-Officer Nouman Raja shot and killed Corey Jones after his car broke down on an Interstate 95 off-ramp. Jones was on the phone with roadside assistance at the time of the shooting, and the recorded call revealed that Raja never identified himself as a police officer. Raja was found guilty of manslaughter and attempted murder in a separate criminal case in 2019 and received a twenty-five-year prison sentence.
Are you saying the handful of settlements that include officers form the majority of funds paid to victims of bad policing?
I was asked for citations, and I delivered (Which you haven't by the way).
Would you at least acknowledge that US taxpayers are on the hook orders of magnitude more often then the offending officers themselves, and that there's a clear conflict of interest presented by this de-facto outcome? Yes, there are exceptions, as you've diligently pointed out, but those are noteworthy because they are the exceptions that prove the general rule of thumb.
Do you know of any US taxpayer who would explicitly, voluntarily, and freely offer to pay for the settlements resulting from the abusive, corrupt, or criminal conduct of police officers in their town, if that were an optional choice that every US taxpayer made distinctly from the implicit, collective choice to comply with public taxation to fund public services writ large?
If every city in the US had a ballot measure in the next election that allowed citizens to vote on whether they would voluntarily accept personal financial responsibility for the misconduct of their police department, OR, mandate that all future settlements come out of the police union / pension fund / guilty officers' personal finances, how do you think those votes would tend to go, across the country?
That's on you.
I showed that there are examples of those things actually happening.
> When lobf posed the question "can you name a single example of a police department, union, or office paying out a settlement? Has it ever happened?", I read that as a rhetorical question that was meant to point out that an overwhelming majority of such cases are paid out by taxpayers, not a serious assertion that police officers themselves have never been held personally financially accountable a single time.
Wut?
Do you mean, like I said previously that we the taxpayers are on the hook because we're the ultimate employers??
Or do you not read anything?
> Do you know of any US taxpayer who would explicitly, voluntarily, and freely offer to pay for the settlements resulting from the abusive, corrupt, or criminal conduct of police officers in their town, if that were an optional choice that every US taxpayer made distinctly from the implicit, collective choice to comply with public taxation to fund public services writ large?
Already covered.
You explicitly abdicated that responsibility to the council/governing organisation to do it on your behalf.
You explicitly expect that organisation to work within the laws of your area.
You explicitly expect victims of bad policing to be paid out monetary compensation
If you don't want any of that to happen, then vote for someone else who will do what you claim you want
> If every city in the US had a ballot measure in the next election that allowed citizens to vote on whether they would voluntarily accept personal financial responsibility for the misconduct of their police department, OR, mandate that all future settlements come out of the police union / pension fund / guilty officers' personal finances, how do you think those votes would tend to go, across the country?
You do vote, every time there is an election.
If you don't know what you are voting for, or you don't like what's on offer, that's on you.
I did not, and never would if given the choice. I had no choice in my citizenship, and would renounce it if given the option, which I am not. Any effort to abdicate the responsibilities involuntary imposed on me is ultimately met with a team of professionally trained gunmen sent by the state to kill me. You're making unsubstantiated and unsubstantiable assertions of fact regarding decisions I've never made.
>You explicitly expect that organisation to work within the laws of your area.
I explicitly do not recognize the legitimacy of the federal government. You are again asserting a provably false narrative about my life that you have no way of knowing.
>You explicitly expect victims of bad policing to be paid out monetary compensation
I do not. You don't seem to understand the meaning of the word explicitly. You appear to be confusing implicit with explicit. Even then, I don't agree with this even implicitly - I don't fundamentally recognize the legitimacy of the state, nor the right of the state to exercise violent force against people who never freely consented to the rules of the state in the first place. Again, you are hallucinating details about my preferences that simply do not exist.
>If you don't want any of that to happen, then vote for someone else who will do what you claim you want
I never agreed to be bound to the laws established by representatives selected through Democratic elections, and I would refuse if given the choice. I do not recognize the legitimacy of the state, nor of the people around me to establish an entity with a monopoly on legal violence, period, let alone to decide who gets to pick what forms of violence are or are not acceptable.
> If every city in the US had a ballot measure in the next election that allowed citizens to vote on whether they would voluntarily accept personal financial responsibility for the misconduct of their police department, OR, mandate that all future settlements come out of the police union / pension fund / guilty officers' personal finances, how do you think those votes would tend to go, across the country?
>You do vote, every time there is an election.
I don't vote and never have, as I do not fundamentally recognize anyone's rights to coerce others by means of democratic election, including myself, nor of the existence of the state itself. You are again making unsupported assumptions about me that appear rooted only in your own imagination.
>If you don't know what you are voting for, or you don't like what's on offer, that's on you.
I have no option to express my political desire to fundamentally be left alone in the current system, the best I can do is leave others alone and accept that, even if against my will, I exist within a system that believes it has the right to exercise force against me, up to and including lethal force, for any or no reason, at the sole discretion of murderers who've been granted permission to murder by other people.
Every act of social interaction I personally undertake is dictated by the ethical terms of the NAP.
Every act of civic interaction I personally undertake with the state is dictated by the terms of the team of professionally trained gunmen who will ultimately be sent to murder me for noncompliance. I pay taxes for the same reason I'd hand a mugger my wallet if he pointed a gun at my face and demanded it - nothing more.
You have the choice. Every time you choose to vote, every time you choose not to engage with your local representatives.
That's not even talking about the most obvious choice - jump on a plane and go somewhere else.
What you really mean is "Waaaahhh waaahhh I have never done anything resembling looking at the issues beyond accusing other people of doing what i don't know anything about"
Honestly, you genuinely sound like one of those libertarians that don't want to pay for water, then run out and start stealing from neighbours.
Or an incel that blames women for all the bad choices HE made.
I'm done with your childishness.
We, the taxpayers, are the ultimate employers, we, the taxpayers, are liable for the things that we the taxpayers ask to be done on our behalf (policing)
We, the voters asked for laws that protect civil rights
We, the taxpayers asked police to enforce those laws
We, the voters demanded that people whose civil rights are violated be compensated fairly
We, the taxpayers/voters chose people that didn't do the job properly (including training)
It's not magic, the governments (at all levels) are there because we put them there, and we told them what we wanted to do (and we voted for the ones that do/do not do what we asked of them, including setting up the systems that do the things)
Your complaint is that the systems YOU vote for are ... doing their job
They can just say you're not a citizen.
(/s incase it isn't obvious)
You’re right that it should be. And in a sane world it would be. Yet here we are anyway.