For the slow-witted: I don't like cops
Last week I was leaving to meet a buddy of mine for dinner. I had a tail light out. So I get pulled over like 2 houses down from my house. Nothing scares me more than cops, and I've seen some scary shit.
I've never been arrested, I wasn't doing anything illegal beyond the tail light, but all I can think about when dealing with cops is they can lock me up or kill me if they want to.
So there's two of them, they walk up on both sides of the car, I have my hands on the wheel and I'm polite to them.
I guess it was apparent that I was pissed off/nervous. While one is running my ID for warrants the other is asking me all kinds of questions about where I'm going, and then asked what my tattoo says.
I told him it's a Jimi Hendrix quote. That was a mistake.
I drive a nice car. I'm clean cut. I live in a nice neighborhood. The only thing they had on me is that I like Jimi Hendrix. That was enough.
They come back and ask "what my problem" is. I was being polite with them. I told them I just don't like being pulled over. They ask if I have any drugs, I say "no". They go on to say it's going to be a lot easier if I just tell them, because they're going to find out anyway, etc.
They ask me if they can look inside the car. I tell them "I'm in a hurry, I'm not consenting to a search".
Cop comes back with "come on man, I'm being cool with you, I could give you a few hundred dollars in tickets, it won't take me 2 minutes to peek around, just be cool with me, if you're not hiding anything what's the problem?"
I should definitely know better, but just wanting them to leave me alone and knowing there's nothing they'd find I was like "whatever, take a look". So I get out, and cop #2 takes me, bends me over my hood and tells me to put my hands behind my back. He holds me there for about 10 minutes while they pat me down and go through all of the shit in my car.
Finally they let me go, no ticket or anything. But I'm still fucking pissed about it. They had me bent over the hood for 10 minutes in front of my neighbors looking like I'm being arrested, and even though I consented to it, I still feel like they were dicks and violated my privacy.
It turned out best cased scenario, but all it would take is someone dropping a pill in my car, or even the cop planting some shit to put me away. It may sound paranoid but there's a lot of people in prison who thought they had "nothing to worry about".
Three important reminders here...
1. Don't put yourself in a position where you have to deal with cops. I hadn't been pulled over in over 10 years. Not checking my lights put me in that position.
2. Don't talk to the police. I was trying to be cooperative so they'd hurry up. There's no "polite" conversation with cops, they're looking for a reason to press you. The questions about drugs came up immediately after the cop said "that's a cool tattoo, what's it say?" The second I said "Jimi Hendrix" it was like they thought I had a pound of weed in the car.
3. Don't consent to a search. They're very good at persuading you to do so. They basically said "cooperate or we're going to figure out a way to fuck you". I caved, I should have told them to hand me the ticket, even though they said otherwise they didn't have anything beyond the light to write a ticket for.
tl;dr -
FUCK THE POLICE.