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I heard a “sports” talk radio show last night still pimping that this guy was pulled over for an air freshener.

No mention of expired tags, or the outstanding warrant.

or the outstanding warrant.

for a firearms violation misdomeanor and fleeing the police. These things always get glossed over by these a holes trying to run a narrative. I am sure the net has been scrubbed by now so any reference to him being a bum have been excised too. I HATE these press pimps.

As I understand it, this is pretty much SOP for LE. If they're bored or at least not busy at the moment they'll look for any excuse to "make contact" with you. Any minor traffic infraction will do - obstructed view from something hanging from a mirror; expired tags; failure to signal a turn or lane change; tail/brake light out; weaving/impaired (perceived); seatbelts not in use (some states, others no); etc.

The idea is, it is an excuse to stop you and check the driver's ID - just looking to see if they have any warrants. If the driver is a jerk, they may look for enough minor violations to make it worthwhile writing them up. If the driver is friendly they "get off with a warning" which really means whatever the initial infraction was the LEO doesn't care about, and you don't have any warrants etc. It is more or less the vehicular version of the beat cop stopping to shoot the breeze with passers by.

I've had several of these kinds of conversations with LE in my 40+ years of driving/riding on the street. I've never even gotten a warning - just short friendly conversations "Oh, that? I wasn't aware of that, thanks I'll take care of that right away." or some such. Honestly so much of a non-event I only barely remember them. One definitely was mud from some off-roading obscuring my license plate. Heck, the whole truck was "obscured" at that point ;-)...