Last time I was home I was on the fwy heading home when a plainclothes HWP cop car pulls me over. There was no cause since I had not violated any road rules. He comes over and dumbfoundly tries to get a date with me. He chats me up for about fifteen minutes and when I kept insisting for him to tell me what law I violated he just comes back with “well take it easy” - gets back in his patrol car and leaves. I must have sat there a good five minutes trying to get my nerves under control. I was too shook to get his number. In any case he would have denied it.
This is why I think dash cams should be on every cop car. Starting to think they should have to wear one like a headset.
Remember this phrase, “Are you detaining me, or am I free to go?”
Officers are only allowed to detain you for cause. If it’s a moving traffic violation, they can only detain you for the time it takes to write a ticket. For example, if they ask to search your vehicle and you decline (as you should), they may try to threaten you, “I can call a K-9 unit and get a warrant but do we really want to go there...”
Your next answer after refusing politely once is, “Are you detaining me, or am I free to go?” If they say they’re detaining you, they are officially declaring that they have a probable cause to do so and this puts them on the hook (they are almost certainly audio/visual recording). If they don’t have probable cause, they have to admit that you’re free to go.
If they don’t say they’re detaining you, leave. That’s your right.
If you remember the time/date/location, file a complaint and ask his supervisors to preserve any recordings made. Better yet, get an attorney to ask for you. It’d be worth it to prevent this from happening to someone else.