Why good cops can't turn in bad cops

[Benito]

Originally Posted By: Garak
I get pulled over on the highway reasonably often, because I'm out late, all the time. I'm not driving "toasty," I don't have stolen goods in the car, I'm not doing drugs, and I'm not breaking traffic laws. My insurance and license are valid. I have no concern about being pulled over.


So what is it you're up to late at night? Apart from bitog?

 

[turtlevette]

If they can check for license then they have cart Blanche. That's not an good thing. Do they check everyone? Or just suspicions vehicles. That's profiling.

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: Benito
So what is it you're up to late at night? Apart from bitog?

I find it easier to do paperwork at my businesses after hours when no one is there to bother me, plus, I'm a night owl.

Originally Posted By: turtlevette
If they can check for license then they have cart Blanche. That's not an good thing. Do they check everyone? Or just suspicions vehicles. That's profiling.

Checking for licenses isn't carte blanche. We have the same plain sight doctrine up here, essentially, as is in the States. He obviously can't be rifling around the trunk unless I want him to, or a warrant is obtained, or whatever. And believe me, if a U.S. police officer wants to pull you over, turtlevette, he will pull you over.

Of course, checking suspicious vehicles is profiling. Profiling isn't a four letter word. If something is suspicious, you check it. You don't check non-suspicious vehicles, unless it is late at night and traffic is that thin. Checking a non-suspicious vehicle isn't productive. Would highway transport patrol order a Honda Civic to pull up onto the portable scales to see if it's overweight for the road? Or, would they target something that's actually likely to be overweight?

Salesmen profile customers. Politicians profile voters. Medical specialists profile their patients. So, when a police officer sees a junky vehicle tooling around at a strange hour and he's not otherwise occupied, there's a good chance he'll pull it over. At the very least, I bet he can find an equipment violation and write a ticket for that.

 

[turtlevette]

Checking for licenses dam sure is. Take some basic law courses at your local community college.

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: turtlevette
Checking for licenses dam sure is. Take some basic law courses at your local community college.

Better yet, how about you explain it to me? It isn't carte blanche at all. I'm well aware of Canadian search and seizure laws. I've been through this before. I used to apply them.

 

[turtlevette]

Originally Posted By: Garak
Originally Posted By: turtlevette
Checking for licenses dam sure is. Take some basic law courses at your local community college.

Better yet, how about you explain it to me? It isn't carte blanche at all. I'm well aware of Canadian search and seizure laws. I've been through this before. I used to apply them.


It's like the cops coming in your house at will to check your smoke detectors. There is no reasonable expectation a crime is being committed.

I see all the huge signs there on 401 threatening to confiscate your car for speeding. You are heading towards a police state.

 

[dishdude]

Originally Posted By: turtlevette

It's like the cops coming in your house at will to check your smoke detectors. There is no reasonable expectation a crime is being committed.

I see all the huge signs there on 401 threatening to confiscate your car for speeding. You are heading towards a police state.



The US ain't far behind. If only the fourth amendment were defended as vigorously as the second. ALL of our rights matter, not just the second amendment.

 

[Shannow]

Here, they can turn up any time of the day or night to see that your guns are stored safely...you can turn them away (once).

They'll set up a fake roadworks to slow the traffic, then set an RBT station up for an entire week, stopping every vehicle on the road for 5 days, licence, RBT, and random drug swab.

 

[bbhero]

Where are you seeing signs about speeding tickets leading to vehicle seizure?? I agree with you about that being a police state.
Like Garak said.... We all profile. In MANY professions. It can save your life or someone else's.

The "profiling" you are talking about is when someone is pulled over for 0 legal reason or not infraction. A person who is the wrong race driving too nice of a car being pulled over is an obvious example of this. In this... I agree with you. This is wrong and sets up tension between people and the police.

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: turtlevette
It's like the cops coming in your house at will to check your smoke detectors. There is no reasonable expectation a crime is being committed.

No, it isn't. There's no expectation of privacy in plain site in a motor vehicle. That's why when they stop you to check your licence and registration, they don't get to check the trunk or the glove box. And a dwelling house is far more protected than that yet, from a legal standpoint. They also don't get to keep you there indefinitely. They check your licence and registration, and that's it, unless there is another problem or you wish to sit there and make conversation. Incidentally, you're too focused on the "reason" for being pulled over. Any half decent patrol officer can find something questionable about a vehicle on a cursory examination, and can almost certainly write a ticket for something if he looks hard enough. So, I always say to be careful what you wish for.

Originally Posted By: turtlevette
I see all the huge signs there on 401 threatening to confiscate your car for speeding. You are heading towards a police state.

Do you know why those signs are there? Do you know what the law on this is? First off, vehicles can be seized in just about every jurisdiction in Canada for any violation of the relevant provincial highway traffic acts. That can be appealed to a legal authority. So, a vehicle being subject to seizure for speeding is nothing new.

Of course, it's rarely done. Those signs there are because of the boy racers that happen to terrorize the 401 on occasion and cause all kinds of terrible collisions. So, someone driving his RHD Supra at 200 km/h is going to get his vehicle seized. He'll probably be "seized" himself, and when a person gets arrested on the 401, their vehicle goes with them. They can't just very well leave it there. Someone going to work at 120 km/h in the 110 km/h zone won't even be noticed. Also, watch your terminology. Confiscation legally implies forfeiture, and that's not the case here whatsoever. There is no provision for the vehicle to be forfeited, unless the registered owner decides to abandon it.

As bbhero says, it's wrong to be going after someone in a certain neighbourhood because of his skin colour. However, profiling does happen and always will, and in many professions.

 

[Astro14]

Originally Posted By: Garak
Originally Posted By: turtlevette
Checking for licenses dam sure is. Take some basic law courses at your local community college.

Better yet, how about you explain it to me? It isn't carte blanche at all. I'm well aware of Canadian search and seizure laws. I've been through this before. I used to apply them.


Turtlevette hasn't figured out that the US and Canada have different legal frameworks...both are derived from English common law, of course, but you can't throw US understanding at Canadian situations and make any reasonable judgements...

TV, how about spending three months in Alberta, take some courses, research provincial law in addition to Canadian law and report back once you've answered your own question?

 

[CT8]

It is the gang mentality.

 

[turtlevette]

Originally Posted By: Astro14
Originally Posted By: Garak
Originally Posted By: turtlevette
Checking for licenses dam sure is. Take some basic law courses at your local community college.

Better yet, how about you explain it to me? It isn't carte blanche at all. I'm well aware of Canadian search and seizure laws. I've been through this before. I used to apply them.


Turtlevette hasn't figured out that the US and Canada have different legal frameworks...both are derived from English common law, of course, but you can't throw US understanding at Canadian situations and make any reasonable judgements...

TV, how about spending three months in Alberta, take some courses, research provincial law in addition to Canadian law and report back once you've answered your own question?


They keep telling us they are more free and a better place than the US. There are a lot of snobby European countries that have the same attitude. The ones that tried to take the worlds freedoms away less than 100 years ago. Now all of a sudden they are liberal bastions of democracy.

I have no interest in their system. They need to learn our system.

Once you start accepting the loss of some liberties, they keep creeping more restrictions in. The fact that garak thinks this stuff is legal and is he is comfortable with it is scary.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: turtlevette

I have no interest in their system. They need to learn our system.


You don't have "a system" though, you have a lot of individual state laws that are all over the place relative to the Federal stuff. Look at the firearms laws as an example. Ours are nation-wide, yours are all over the place depending on the state.

Originally Posted By: turtlevette
Once you start accepting the loss of some liberties, they keep creeping more restrictions in. The fact that garak thinks this stuff is legal and is he is comfortable with it is scary.


What part do you specifically see as not being legal and are having an issue with?

BTW, in response to your "if they check for a license they have carte blanche" statement:

https://www.quora.com/What-information-do-police-officers-look-up-when-they-pull-you-over

Quote:
When I conduct a car stop, I approach and request some form of identification. I prefer a driver's license, but lacking that I can work with a Social Security number or even just a name and a date of birth (bear in mind, though, that if an adult claims to not know their SSN, they're getting some serious scrutiny - this was more often than not the hallmark of someone trying to conceal their identity).

With that information in hand, I return to my patrol car. From here, procedures will vary by agency, but in telling you my process know that it will be largely the same anywhere you go. I would first get on an administrative radio channel set up for this purpose and "run your information" through the dispatcher. This consisted of giving your name, date of birth, gender, race, and driver's license or SS number over the radio. The dispatcher queries their systems with this information, and checks for multiple information items:

Driving Status. The Department of Revenue database is searched for your information. This record will include all the information present on your driver's license, a current driving privilege status (valid, suspended, revoked, or no privilege), and a list of traffic convictions on your record.

*snip*


And there is plenty more being checked.

 

[qwerty1234]

Right now in the U.S. the issue of profiling is a hot topic. Garak, you are not going to get a lot of sympathy. Getting pulled over for no reason is something most U.S. citizens are beginning to hate.You justify these stops by your theory of: "if you are not doing anything wrong then you shouldn't have a problem."

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: turtlevette
They keep telling us they are more free and a better place than the US.

Who are they? I say no such thing. Every country is different. Just because Canada isn't exactly the United States doesn't make it Burkina Faso, and just because the U.S. isn't Canada doesn't make it North Korea. Much beyond that, I'm not going to get into the politics of it.

As for legality, I don't think it's legal. I know it is. There is absolutely no question, even among the most activist defence lawyers in the country. And I'm comfortable with it since it's been like this long before I was born.

qwerty1234: I didn't say anything about getting pulled over for no reasons. I gave you reasons. People get pulled over here to get their licenses and registrations checked. Also, people get profiled and pulled over, the world over. And I never said others should be thinking that it's fine to get pulled over if they're doing nothing wrong. I say that for me, I know what the situation is, and I know what I'm doing, and I accept that. That doesn't mean others have to like it or approve of it. And, as I've said to turtlevette, and as Overkill has said to him, I'll repeat to you. If an American law enforcement officer wishes to pull you over, he's going to do it, and you're well aware of that.

Originally Posted By: turtlevette
I have no interest in their system. They need to learn our system.

Pure rubbish. You ought to know better than that. For one, you keep trying to tell me what is legal and illegal in the Canadian system, then you claim you have no interest in it. Which is it?

 

[turtlevette]

Everybody must have a license. They have carte Blanche in that they can pull over anyone they please. Not carte Blanche to do other things after that. You guys are experts at twisting stuff. Here when they do stops looking for drunk drivers they must stop everybody or nobody. Its a fairness thing.

If a cop finds something after the fact its still an invalid stop here. We have a constitution. We have a bill of rights. So there are standards.

If a cop makes up a reason to stop you before the stop its an invalid stop.

Overkill links to a cop forum with one cops opinion. We discussed this before about finding stuff on the net that supports a preconceived position. Its garbage.

I can accept that this stuff is legal in ca but it gets us upset here and is not legal. Quite a surprise for me. I've always felt fairly comfortable in ca but this will give me pause in the future.

Smacks of the ss stopping people asking for their papers.

 

[qwerty1234]

Garak, how does a police officer stop a "random" driver for a proper drivers license & insurance without profiling???? The police officers I've known for years are good guys. Of course, they rarely do traffic enforcement because they are too busy running from call to call. You seem to rather have the police or Royal Canadian Mounties sitting outside bars and pulling people over for no tail lights. Listen to the free scanner online site for Chicago for 1 hour on a Friday night.

 

[KD0AXS]

Originally Posted By: turtlevette
Everybody must have a license. They have carte Blanche in that they can pull over anyone they please. Not carte Blanche to do other things after that. You guys are experts at twisting stuff. Here when they do stops looking for drunk drivers they must stop everybody or nobody. Its a fairness thing.

If a cop finds something after the fact its still an invalid stop here. We have a constitution. We have a bill of rights. So there are standards.

If a cop makes up a reason to stop you before the stop its an invalid stop.

Overkill links to a cop forum with one cops opinion. We discussed this before about finding stuff on the net that supports a preconceived position. Its garbage.

I can accept that this stuff is legal in ca but it gets us upset here and is not legal. Quite a surprise for me. I've always felt fairly comfortable in ca but this will give me pause in the future.

Smacks of the ss stopping people asking for their papers.



I was once stopped for no reason. It was at 2 am, so the officer was obviously just fishing for drunks. Here's how that went:

Officer: "I pulled you over because your license plate light isn't working."

Me: "Are you sure? I know it was working a little while ago."

He then walked to the back of the car, and back up to the window and said, "I guess it is working. Have a good night." He then just went back to his car and never asked for my ID or anything. That little exchange was enough to see that I wasn't drunk and there wasn't anything else he could get me for since he had no reason to stop me in the first place.

 

[qwerty1234]

KD, "fishing for drunks" is what they do. That's happened to me a number of times. I believe they watch and take note as to how long cars are parked at the bar.