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He should have told the police to pound sand.
It is the gutless people who are afraid to stand up for their rights who encourage this kind of unconstitutional behavior by a tyrannical government.
When you have criminals with a badge, it's your duty to refuse. All it takes is a majority of people to stand up to these thugs and their whole charade falls apart. Now they are stopping and trying to search cars with Colorado license plates in the surrounding states because of the legalization of pot...most likely so they can confiscate it and re-sell it themselves.
If I get stopped, the first thing I do is turn on a video camera. If they want to call in their drug dogs I can't stop them. But I'll keep them there all day if I have to and I'll post the video all over the internet.
Well, here they couldn't do that. They have no right to detain you and would most likely be either fired or demoted after being sued and paying a large judgement.
If he had said "no," then the most likely response from the police would be to call in a K-9 Unit and have a dog check-out the outside of the vehicle. Depending on how badly the police wanted an arrest, the dog-handler could have easily cause the dog to have a false alert. Thus giving them the excuse they need to do the search without his permission. If the police were feeling particularly put out, then I would not put it past them to plant drugs in your step-father's vehicle if they find none.
It is not difficult for police to manufacture an excuse to arrest anyone they want. The attitude of the police matters more than the actual law.
Immediately after refusing to consent to the search, you need to ask if you are free to go. Despite what people may think, the police cannot arbitrarily detain you while they wait for a K9 to show up.
Immediately after refusing to consent to the search, you need to ask if you are free to go. Despite what people may think, the police cannot arbitrarily detain you while they wait for a K9 to show up.
When you are pulled over in in rural Texas in the middle of the night you have to play by rural Texas rules.
"I verbally objected to an unconstitutional search of my vehicle in Electra, Texas. Police officers Matt Wood and Gary Ellis maliciously responded by issuing me two false citations. I got a copy of the dashboard-camera video at the pretrial hearing. It showed all. City attorney Todd Greenwood demanded I give my copy of the evidence back, and tried to have me arrested when I refused.
City attorney Todd Greenwood then compared rural Texas to the movie Deliverance, and warned me "What's written down in the Constitution is one thing, and the real practice is another."
"there are some bad people out there, and they wear badges, and they wear badges so they can get away with it, and they will bend you up. and at the end of the day, unless you've got real good evidence against them, you're not gonna get their badge, you may get worse than that. so be careful, ok?" "you may beat the rap but you won't beat the ride"
Skip to 9:30 to see the attorney try to intimidate the driver.
When you are pulled over in in rural Texas in the middle of the night you have to play by rural Texas rules.
"I verbally objected to an unconstitutional search of my vehicle in Electra, Texas. Police officers Matt Wood and Gary Ellis maliciously responded by issuing me two false citations. I got a copy of the dashboard-camera video at the pretrial hearing. It showed all. City attorney Todd Greenwood demanded I give my copy of the evidence back, and tried to have me arrested when I refused.
City attorney Todd Greenwood then compared rural Texas to the movie Deliverance, and warned me "What's written down in the Constitution is one thing, and the real practice is another."
"there are some bad people out there, and they wear badges, and they wear badges so they can get away with it, and they will bend you up. and at the end of the day, unless you've got real good evidence against them, you're not gonna get their badge, you may get worse than that. so be careful, ok?" "you may beat the rap but you won't beat the ride"
Skip to 9:30 to see the attorney try to intimidate the driver.
Very interesting video. Thanks for sharing. I wish I could say I was surprised, but this is an all too common occurrence in most small towns.
Is Todd Greenwood still the city attorney for Electra, Texas? If so, why?
The Texas Attorney General and the FBI needs to see this video, so they can remove this prick from office and arrest a few COPs. Your video is more than sufficient grounds to demonstrate prosecutorial misconduct.
02/25/2014
The City of Electra is now on the hunt for a new city attorney after its city commission voted not to renew the current city attorney, Todd Greenwood's contract.
"In light of the negative publicity the video has generated, I do not anticipate this commission's renewal of my contract, however I will not resign my position," Greenwood says.
His contract expired in December.
Greenwood said due to a possible lawsuit, there wasn't much he could say.
02/25/2014
The City of Electra is now on the hunt for a new city attorney after its city commission voted not to renew the current city attorney, Todd Greenwood's contract.
"In light of the negative publicity the video has generated, I do not anticipate this commission's renewal of my contract, however I will not resign my position," Greenwood says.
His contract expired in December.
Greenwood said due to a possible lawsuit, there wasn't much he could say.
Not good enough. At the very least the Texas Attorney General should get a copy of your video. Allowing him to stay in office even one day longer is an affront to the US Constitution. He needs to be prosecuted, and every prior case he has handled needs to be reviewed for prosecutorial misconduct, because you know you were not the first.
The police don't care about enforcing the law. They care about boosting their pathetic egos, and showing how much "power" they have. They'll make up whatever BS they can to say they have probable cause. Just say no and call them out for being full of it. I agree with some others posters. It would be wise to keep a video camera in your car.
Ever notice how some of the dumb people/losers from your high school class want to become cops? They're mad at the world, and take it out on civilians.
Was chatting with my step-father earlier today and he told me of an interesting situation that happened to him about a year ago.
He was driving cross country, and had stopped to fill up his car at a truck stop in a small town in Kansas. He emerged from inside the truck stop and was approached by two police officers (county sheriff) who started questioning him about what he was "doing"...after they asked some questions, the officers apparently said they believed he might be trafficking drugs, and asked to search his vehicle. He obliged, and they searched the car, and his luggage.
After not finding any drugs, they let him continue on his way. I know that the search was legal since he said yes...but what if he'd said no?
He believes the instance was racial profiling, to provide some demographics my step father is a 56 year old African American male. He has a college degree from a big 10 school, and dresses very conservatively, he was also driving a late model Japanese sedan.
Curious to see opinions. Thanks.
It wasn't racial profiling. It was a drug interdiction encounter. This is a standard practice among drug interdiction units across the country. I'm a retired police officer and have had this done to me on a couple of occasions. These officers know the law and they are very careful in the way they word their questions. If your step-father had just said "no you can't search my car and then quit talking there's a 95% chance they'd have just let him go on. You'd be surprised at how many drug couriers consent to the search and then get busted.
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