To be more serious:
1. I am not OK with the gubment treating citizens as guilty criminals who must PROVE innocence. That is wrong wrong wrong. It is un-American, it is counter to our culture.
2. The cops where very used to manufacturing probable cause where none exists. It is a game to them. It is a game because for them, the consequence of violating a Constitutional provision is nothing. At the worst, a lost conviction. They get off too easy. For a citizen, every time you come in contact with LE, you are at grave risk of arrest. It is far to easy, it is habitual for them to control, incarcerate, bully. It is wrong.
3. The citizen has no obligation to speak to Law Enforcement. You don’t have to say a word, you don’t have to answer any question. You don’t have to roll down your window any further than you want to. It will get you into trouble on the street, but not in the court, unless the cops plant something on you.
4. It is despicable that anybody can watch this and think it is OK, normal, standard, routine. It is routine. But it is very wrong. Cops should be ashamed of their profession and get out. But thugs with no other skills will always trade self respect and dignity for a pay check.
In summary, too many cops, too much money, too much time on their hands. But it is the fault of citizens who demand more police presence and are willing to pay for it. Citizens demand Police because they expect safety to be guaranteed. On this Earth, nothing is guaranteed. But most demand risk be transferred to others because they are COWARDS!
In the name of “the rule of law” we've allowed gubbamint to pass laws on top of laws on top of laws that govern every move you make.
Common sense has been replaced with the watchful eye of big broth-ah gubbamint.
I read an article that described how folks unwittingly violate the law every single day of their lives and don't even realize it. In fact, the article goes on to say that many folks commit up to three felonies a day without knowledge of it.
The example given...Have you ever thrown away junk mail in your box that was addressed to another person? It is a felony punishable up to five years in jail.
No kidding...wow! He’z right. We have too damn many laws. Bad news...it ain't gonna get any better. Good news...move out to the country where your chance encounter with LE are much smaller.
I am in no way defending their actions as a whole. As stated in the original post - the artificial ‘hit’ they generated with the drug sniffing (supposedly) dog was basically planting evidence to justify further searching. That was wrong. It should be investigated. And likely some sort of disciplinary action applied. Because that was, without any doubt, over the line.
I do not question the officers for getting tough when he refused to roll his window down. That was act of hiding or deception given it was a simple request - and a likely legitimate one from a pure communications aspect. The officer should have said ‘Its noisy out here, please roll down your window some more.’. Keeping the window up or most of the way up shows a possible intent to hide the smell of alcohol or other substances. The driver intentionally created the appearance of deceit or hiding to trigger the extended detainment. When you go through a ‘DUI checkpoint’ the officers want to stick their nose in your car, smell if your stinking drunk or if you have a 12-pack of empty cans on the floor. If you will not roll down your window it looks like you are hiding these two elements. That is what he did and that is why he got the extra treatment - and he knew it. He had been through these checkpoints before and know they just want to observe for the obvious elements of DUI.
If the driver is correct about them causing the dog to generate a ‘fake hit’ that is bad.
I also find the officers overall reaction to the discovery of the video interesting. They clearly did not destroy it and did did not seem alarmed by what it might have caught.
I have been the ‘victim’ of an over aggressive police detainment. waiting for over an hour for a breathalyzer/paddy-wagon to show up. When it did, the results were an embarrassment to the officers on-scene and the situation quickly resolved.
These were local deputies on a big summer drinking holiday in mostly rural Tennessee where people will party hard doing what they do. They possibly crossed a line if they did generate a ‘fake hit’ with the dog and there is no excuse for that and that should be investigated.
Now if we start getting Federal DHS officers doing this on any old day at any time in the name of public safety or stopping terrorists....that is a very, very different story.