[Pontiac]

Stephen cooperated throughout the ordeal

Lesson to learn; answer only questions directly pertinent to the stop. When they start asking unrelated questions simply state that you decline to answer any further questions.

The officers who pulled him over never alleged he did anything wrong, and Stephen cooperated throughout the ordeal. However, using civil forfeiture, the officers were able to detain Stephen for more than an hour and take his life savings from him.

After answering the stop related questions ask if your are being arrested. When they say no, state that you would like to leave as you have pressing business elsewhere.

The police may not detain you without cause. The longer you are in contact with the police the greater chance that they can manufacture a reason to arrest you.

[rednesss]

SCOTUS has ruled that you can not be detained longer than is reasonable to conduct the traffic stop for which you were pulled over for. You cannot be detained one second longer because of some suspicion that has no basis in reasonable, articulable suspicion that an actual crime has been committed or is about to be committed.

See Rodriguez v. United States

[Leaning Right]

> The police may not detain you without cause. <

Right you are. But that will not stop a bad officer in the least. And what can you do about it? Qualified immunity protects the officer from being charged with any crime.

You can sue, then wait years for a resolution.

And this is something cops don’t care to get. The cavalier behavior of a minority of police officers (and perhaps a large minority) is driving a huge wedge between decent citizens and the police. Not good for anyone.

[Pirate Ragnar]

“After answering the stop related questions ask if your are being arrested. When they say no, state that you would like to leave as you have pressing business elsewhere.

The police may not detain you without cause. The longer you are in contact with the police the greater chance that they can manufacture a reason to arrest you.”

The police can say they are conducting an investigation and detain you while they proceed.

[Ez2BRepub]

The problem is, they use the original reason for the stop (i.e. traffic infraction), to say, they have probable cause to detain you and investigate further. If you watch the cop shows, they say this all the time.

[ro_dreaming]

Why did they stop him? What was the probable cause?