Slightly OT, but in response to your “...how I would have handled the situation...” I recall many years ago being pulled over for expired tabs. The cop was using the stop as an excuse to conduct a fishing expedition. I had all of my papers in order and my vehicle was completely legal, except for the tabs which I had just purchased, but hadn’t installed yet.
The cop asked permission to search my truck and I declined. He got insistent, snotty, and belligerent. Funny thing about that “getting the drop” - I had my carry piece in a position where he would have been dead if I was inclined. But I wasn’t inclined. I just wanted my ticket and to go home.
I suggested that perhaps a different officer could complete the stop. That really pissed him off! Curiously, he had the right to bring me out of my vehicle, but never did. Instead he stood outside my door and berated me. After about five minutes (an eternity when you’re under attack) another squad car pulled up.
After a confab the other officer approached me and asked “What’s up?” I explained my predicament, and recited my right to “quiet enjoyment”, and suggested that they just write the ticket and call it a night. Amazingly, he agreed. He went back to the younger cop and had another talk with huim. I could see that he was plainly pissed but wrote out the ticket with an angry flourish and had me sign it (gritting his teeth all the while).
The problem with this stop was that it:
1. Was over nothing.
2. Accomplished nothing worthwhile (I took my new tabs into the judge and he threw out the case).
3. Threatened both of us needlessly (yes, I contemplated my defense options which included killing him - I consciously chose against that course).
4. Left an indelibly bad impression of the police.
Where you live, don’t you have to declare you are CCW licensed? Here, you must show your license, whether you have a gun with you are not.
Now let me take the other approach, you start busting my stones, the issue is you don’t want to put the tags on the plates until you get home. You become more aggressive, you know explaining your rights etc. I ask if I can search you truck, you say no. At that point, I tell you, stay in your truck, call for backup. When backup arrives, I show you a photo and a newspaper story about a town a few miles from here, where the cop has a sniffer dog. The cop and dog are available, can be here in 10 mins. Sir you have the option, me search or the dog sniffs, which is it?
I used this technique several times with positive results. When I offered that you put the tags on the plates, but you did not want to, that says to me, you want out of here, now. Why?
If your story is accurate that SPD cop was chickenshit for writing a ticket.