I'm a doo-doo magnet. Ask any officer I work with at my two police jobs, or my fiancee, who happens to be a cop. I'm a doo-doo magnet because I love to look beyond the obvious traffic violations during traffic stops.
A lot of really bad guys, such as Tim McVeigh, have been caught on routine traffic stops. This article will give you some tips on how to approach a traffic stop in a non-routine manner.
A Different Way
A routine traffic stop usually goes something like this. Officer pulls car over, gets out, hitches up belt and walks up to the car.
I d like to see your license, registration and insurance card, the officer says. Driver hands it over.
Do you know why I stopped you today? (I have to tell you, I hate that line. More on that later.)
No officer, I was just following along with traffic, listening to my Grateful Dead CD.
OK, I ll be with you in a moment.
Then the officer comes back up with the citation/warning/whatever, issues it and leaves. Takes about seven minutes.
First of all, call in each and every one of your stops. I don t care how much she looks like the little old lady from Pasadena, for your safety and security, and to catch anybody stupid enough to hurt you or run, call them all in. Give dispatch the tag, stop location and descriptions of the vehicle and occupants. All of these items are important. If the dispatcher doesn t like you calling in all of your stops due to laziness or whatever, have a nice talk with them. Tell them Wal-Mart is always hiring.
As you call in this information, observe the occupants of the vehicle in front of you. Look for furtive movement. That s what the court calls it. We know it on the street as fidgeting, fumbling around or acting hinky. Look at the vehicle for any other signs that can give you a clue. Legalize Marijuana bumper stickers are a little obvious. But if you see a 4/20 sticker, a bunch of cute multicolored bears or other little signs, you may have found a little more then a speeder or stop-sign violator. An NRA sticker might indicate the driver is armed. As would a bumper sticker that reads, Keep honking, I m reloading.
As you approach the violator s vehicle, touch the plastic taillight cover with a finger. This leaves your fingerprint in case you get hurt. When your crime-scene folks find the car and the owner says, The officer must have gotten the tag wrong, your fingerprint may lead to a conviction if you aren t there to testify.
Check the trunk. Make sure it s closed. As you approach the driver, check the passenger s hands. If you can t see them, make the passengers show them. Ultimately, you re responsible for your own safety, and I d rather see all of us go home than get hurt just because we were afraid of being perceived as rude. You don t have to scream, Letmeseeyourhands! with your hand on your gun; a Hey, ya all mind showing me your hands real quick, spoken in a normal tone gets the job done, too.
When you approach the driver, make sure you can see their hands. If they re reaching for something, even if it s during the day, pull out your flashlight and look along with them. The glint of your flashlight s beam off of steel might make the difference between no notice and a second s notice, and that second may be just what you need.
I always introduce myself to the violator by rank, name and department. It lets them know who they re dealing with, and lets them know that I m not afraid to tell them who I am and who I work for. I then ask for their driver s license, registration and insurance. When I have at least the driver s license, I read the appropriate title (Mr. or Ms.) and last name, and advise them that we are being audio and visually recorded, and the reason for which I m stopping them. Then I ask if there is a reason why they did what I am accusing them of. It accomplishes the same task as the line, Do you know why I m stopping you? You are trying to get a confession either way, but the latter allows someone to say, Uh, no. I was about to ask you that. Usually, I hear, I wasn t paying attention, or I didn t know what the speed limit was or I thought the speed limit was higher.
When you talk to the driver, look around the car for other vehicle-code violations. When they reach into the console or glove box for their paperwork, shine your flashlight in there. Look for the glassine bags, pipes, guns, knives, spoons, needles, needle caps, film canisters, aluminum foil and other common drug paraphernalia. Look in the back seat for alcohol, possible stolen goods, dead bodies, whatever. You pulled this person over and now have a really good reason to look all over their car for whatever probable cause you can find to further an investigation.
I work in Pennsylvania, where it s difficult to search a vehicle without a warrant or consent. Other states allow you to do that. So, I m not advocating a full search unless your state allows it, but if you have the car legally stopped and can see all around it and in it with the aid of a flashlight, then by all means, do so.
While the driver gets the paperwork, I ll sometimes ask them questions, such as Where are you coming from? If from work, I ll ask, Where do you work? While they divide their attention between searching for papers and answering your questions, they sometimes lose focus on whatever lie they may have planned. I ll even sometimes tell them I admire the car. I ll ask about the year, model, trunk space, etc. Sometimes they volunteer to show me things. Like the trunk. Where, in one case, I found a stolen street sign, complete with the cross street and attachment brackets.
If you find something in plain view, it s up to you how to deal with that. As I said, I work in one of the most restrictive states in the United States when it comes to car searches. In other cases, usually on TV, I ve seen police officers search cars on the side of the road, then release the driver to put the seats back in and the dashboard back in place. However, to avoid a suppression issue, I usually tell the driver at the end of the stop, You re free to go, but your vehicle isn t. I m impounding it until I get a search warrant. Then I get a search warrant. Sometimes, the driver will say, For what? and when I tell them, they ll volunteer to let me have whatever it is. I don t do that because, as my instructors have told me, If you find one thing, you will find others. So, I recommend getting the warrant.
But before I do that, I return to my vehicle and call in the information on the driver, any passengers and the car. Sometimes I get warrant returns, insurance cancellation suspensions or suspended drivers. Usually not. But that one time in 10 or 20, I get a little more then I bargained for. Then you hear the radio sound off with another officer calling out, Doo-doo, doo-doo, gonna put it on you. (Think Eddie Murphy for comic effect.) Fill out your citation or warning, or if you are going to arrest, request another unit to back you up.
If you don t find anything in plain view and have no other signs anything is amiss, you can always ask for consent to search the vehicle. Make sure that when you do that, the person you are asking knows they can say no and that they are free to leave. We have a stupid little rule here that says, basically, give the violator their information, tell them they are free to leave, turn to walk from the vehicle, then turn back and ask them if you can talk to them. It s a ridiculous, fiery red hoop, but that s what they want police here to do. Bottom line: Follow your department s procedures and the state s law, and don t cut corners.
If they consent, take them out of the car and search immediately. When I take a person or people out of a car, I ask them if they have anything illegal or dangerous on them. Then I ask to search them. If they let me, I do it. I ve found marijuana pipes and other drugs on a lot of people doing that.
The only problem is what to do with the people in the car when you search it. If you can get a backup officer on scene, which is recommended, have that officer watch the occupants while you search. A good backup officer will keep the occupants distracted for a good while. Sometimes the backup officer will convince the occupants to reveal any contraband in the vehicle.
I m fortunate enough to have bars in the back windows of my patrol car, which prevent them from being kicked out. In the past, I ve asked people to take a seat in the back of the patrol car to protect me from a surprise attack. I give them a plastic clipboard with a consent-to-search form on it, roll the windows down and ask them to fill the form out. I also tell them that if they want me to stop searching, they can just yell from the back seat. Then I close the door. I give them a plastic clipboard because it s less of a threat than my metal pinch pad, but you still must carefully remove it, and them, from the car to arrest them.
If you don t have a backup or the subject won t get into your car, you have two choices. You can have them stand behind their car seated on your front bumper. This puts them right in front of the camera, and allows you to observe them. Or, you can take the other, less obvious choice, and release them without searching the car. No amount of drugs, contraband or stolen property is worth your life, and if your gut tells you something is way too wrong to allow your occupants to wander around while you search, don t do it. If you don t get them today, tomorrow is another day.
If you can control the occupants, and you have valid consent, proceed to search the car. People forget about the pot pipe they left in the ashtray the last time they went out. Or the gun under the seat. Or any of the other little things they have in the car that they shouldn t have. If you find something, it s up to you to handle it by summons or immediate arrest. Or, see if you can flip the violator to give up where he got the pipe, pot, crack, stolen items, whatever.
Good Cop
Once you re done, if you haven t found anything, be gracious. They may be innocent this time, or at least not guilty. Thank them for their cooperation. Tell them you appreciate their time. Stroke their feathers so they don t think you violated them just for the fun of it. Tell them of the large amount of problems your agency deals with. Don t get into details, but kiss them goodbye. If you keep your ego in check, you d be surprised how many people will actually thank you when they leave, feeling like they did their part in the war on drugs.
If you do find something on a consent search, thank those people too. Tell them, Hey, at least now you can get this cleared up and get help if you need it. Make them feel like you re there for them. Sometimes, a violator will tell you about the bong in the backseat. After you ve gotten it, thank them for their honesty. It ll help you in court, and on the street, when they tell their friends to talk to you about something because you are the cool cop, or at least didn t make them feel like crap.
When it s all over and done, you can have a good arrest with a violator who doesn t feel like an idiot, and more drugs, weapons and other contraband off of the street. This takes a little more time, energy and effort, but it s well worth it.
And above all, be safe.
Eric B. Beyer has been a police officer for seven years. He currently works in Reading Township in Adams County, Pa., and Duncannon Borough in Perry County. Contact him at [email protected].
