6 ms·
Suspicious behavior is not a crime, and law enforcement is required to have a reasonable, articulable suspicion of a crime in order to detain people.
by LgWoodenBadger 11mo ago
Suspicious behavior is not a crime, and law enforcement is required to have a reasonable, articulable suspicion of a crime in order to detain people.
- lawlessone 11mo ago>and law enforcement is required to have a reasonable, articulable suspicion of a crime in order to detain people. They can just say you're not a citizen.
- engeljohnb 11mo agoIt's the oldest trick in the fascist book. You can't be a tyrant when the people are used to the idea that citizens have inalienable rights, so you slowly chip away at who counts as a "citizen."
- randallsquared 11mo agoThe legal system has been chipping away at the rights themselves (and otherwise expanding governmental power) for hundreds of years, predating fascism (and communism, too). This is just the tactic of the moment.
- anonym29 11mo agoUnfortunately, law enforcement often isn't subject to US law in practice, only in theory. And even on those few occasions where they are held to account for crimes against the public, the settlement is paid out with the public's own money rather than the officer's.
- awesome_dude 11mo agoDevil's advocate: If the officer is acting within the policy/training they are given by their employer (and that includes not being told to not do something) then it's the employer's fault, and we (the taxpayer/ultimate employer) are liable for that.
- LocalH 11mo ago"I was just following orders"
- awesome_dude 11mo agoYou are bound to obey the legal orders/directions of your employer. If you deem them to be illegal - the onus is on you to prove that, in a court of law, whilst you are unemployed because the employer sacked you for disobeying their instructions/orders It's all cool to be on the internet saying things like that, but when it comes to reality, I DOUBT you would do anything other than acquiesce.
- awesome_dude 11mo agoFor anyone that thinks otherwise - the POTUS is currently in a dispute with Senators about this https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/11/20/punishable-by-death-trump-threatens-democrats-with-sedition-charges https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/11/20/punishable-by-deat...
- donkyrf 11mo agoThe devil doesn't need an advocate. And you are misrepresenting the situation of what is paid out.
- awesome_dude 11mo agoNope. As proved by the fact that you have no evidence.
- donkyrf 11mo agoThat’s not proof. I am not going to debate a liar. There’s no value in treating you with respect. You don’t warrant it. You’re the worthless product of two awful people who never should have met.
- cestith 11mo ago
- iso1631 11mo agoIf you've nothing to hide you've nothing to fear (/s incase it isn't obvious)
- stevenjgarner 11mo agoPlease watch "Don't Talk to the Police" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36371237 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36371237)
- toomanyrichies 11mo ago> incase it isn’t obvious You’re right that it should be. And in a sane world it would be. Yet here we are anyway.
- ortusdux 11mo agoIt's borderline impossible to drive from one location to another and not break a law. Some argue that this is by design.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- m00x 11mo agoHow? I've never been arrested in my life because I follow laws, so I'm unfamiliar how you can just accidentally break a law. Is this an American thing?
- hexbin010 11mo agoNever ever broken the speed limit? Idled your vehicle? (Illegal in the UK no idea about the US)
- ortusdux 11mo agoIn my area I can get pulled over for exceeding the speed limit, or the more nebulous "impeding the flow of traffic" aka driving too slow. On average, most drivers speed on the highways here, so it ends up being illegal to go with the flow and illegal to not go with the flow.
- awesome_dude 11mo agoMy favourite has been "exceeding the speed limit" Which is fine, EXCEPT that it wasn't the *posted* speed limit, it was the *gazetted* speed limit (that is, the signs were incorrect and driving to them was illegal
- ethin 11mo agoWhere are you from? In the US, there are well over a thousand laws on the books. Might be more like 10000 with respect to criminal law alone. And that's at the federal level. Factor in all the various states and criminal codes for those states and the surface area becomes enormous. In my state alone, it is illegal to do things like: * Hold stud poker games by charitable groups more than twice a year * Keep an elk in a sandbox in your back yard * Serve both beer and pretzels at a bar or restaurant simultaneously * Swim naked in the Red River from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m * Wear a hat while dancing or at any event where a dance is happening * Lie down and fall asleep with your shoes on Yes, these are actual crimes in the state I'm in. If you think those are absurd, you should see some other states criminal codes; for example, in Alaska, it is illegal to appear drunk in a bar. No, really, I'm serious. So you literally can't live your life without breaking the law somehow. I'm pretty sure Legal Eagle has an entire video (or more than one) dedicated to downright stupid laws like these. In a just world, these laws wouldn't exist, but, well... Edit: just wanted to add that I can't seem to find actual legal citations for some of these but they may be county or city ordinances. Regardless, they are still stupid and still crimes from what I know.
- rileymat2 11mo agoFrom the sound of the article, they flag the person for local police that then can almost always find a reason to pull someone over as a pretext.
- frank_nitti 11mo agoPolice that I’ve spoken to will readily confirm this. They consider profiling, not necessarily racial, an important part of patrolling. If they decide you look the part, they will find a way within several minutes/miles of watching.
- duxup 11mo ago"Computer said you did something wrong, explain yourself."
- codegeek 11mo agoGuilty until proven innocent.
- jabroni_salad 11mo agoI commute to a different state for work and when one of them legalized weed I once got pulled over and dog-searched for "driving exactly the speed limit." When they want to go fishing there is absolutely nothing that will stop them.
- Schiendelman 11mo agoBut once in court, you would probably get that thrown out. The key problem is that we haven't instituted consequences for that sort of police behavior.
- rileymat2 11mo agoIf you go to court, pay a lawyer for the hours for it, instead of pleading down. In many cases you have already lost just based on the accusation.
- pixelatedindex 11mo agoThat’s if you get to go to court. ICE makes mistakes and I doubt any of their detainees get due process.
- jabroni_salad 11mo agoThey did not ticket me so there is no day in court. Chatting you up, seeing everything visible through the windows, leaning in to smell your car, running your license for warrants are all "free" interactions with no oversight. The fun doesnt stop there, check out 'civil asset forfeiture' when you have a chance. Also, if you read TFA, it seemed like the owner of a truck and trailer had to spend $20k getting his stuff out of impound when his employee was wrongly arrested. Seems like an innocent judgement isnt everything we think it is.
- FireBeyond 11mo ago> Seems like an innocent judgement isnt everything we think it is. The State of Florida will charge you $75/day for your incarceration, even if charges are dropped, dismissed or you are found not guilty. Not paying these fees is a Class C Felony in Florida, punishable by up to 10y in prison and/or a $10,000 fine.
- stevenjgarner 11mo agoNot true. Section 215 of Patriot Act expanded surveillance powers, information-sharing, and intelligence authorities, allowing the FBI to obtain “business records” relevant to counterterrorism, no probable cause required. This does not specifically authorize detention, but show me the "business records" of any enterprise that would not raise questions requiring 48-hour hold.
- avidiax 11mo ago> law enforcement is required to have a reasonable, articulable suspicion of a crime in order to detain people. In theory, yes. In practice, yes, with many caveats. LE doesn't have to articulate that reasonable suspicion at the time of the detention. They can come up with that suspicion years later when it comes to deciding in court whether the evidence from that traffic stop can be suppressed. This is assuming that the warrantless search even found anything, the suspect didn't accept a plea deal in lieu of going to trial, and the charges weren't dropped just before trial. A working system for this sort of thing would be more like: * The officer needs to record that reasonable suspicion at the time of the detention. * All of these reasonable suspicion detentions are recorded, along with outcomes. This becomes evidence for reasonability presented in court. An officer with a low hit rate suggests that the suspicion in generally unreasonable, and they are just fishing. * A 20 minute timer is started at the start of a traffic stop. If the officer can't articulate the reasonable suspicion at the 20 minute mark, detention is considered plainly illegal, and qualified immunity does not apply. This prevents keeping people on the roadside for a hour waiting for the dog to show up. * Similarly, the hit rate of the police dogs needs to be recorded, and low hit rate should make any evidence from them inadmissible. For any of this to happen, we would need to start giving standing to supposedly "unharmed" suspects that just had their vehicle torn apart and hours of their lives wasted without charge. Currently, the courts seem to think that a little wait at a traffic stop and an fruitless illegal search that is never seen in the courtroom is no damage at all.
- w10-1 11mo ago> If the officer can't articulate the reasonable suspicion at the 20 minute mark Wouldn't the suspicion -- the observed fact and presumed implication -- need to be recorded before the traffic stop?
- avidiax 11mo agoThe traffic stop is for breaking some kind of traffic law, usually. I suppose you could have a reasonable suspicion stop, but it would have to be something like "a hit and run just happened nearby, no vehicle description", and you witness a car with a smashed grill and leaking radiator fluid, but not breaking any traffic laws. Reasonable suspicion might develop over the course of the stop, e.g. driver is super nervous, the back seat is full of overstuffed black duffel bags, there is a powerful chemical air freshener odor, and the vehicle has just crossed the Mexico border.
- codegeek 11mo agoAssuming they do the questioning in good faith. When they are ordered to "find something", you are already at a disadvantage as a regular person. I mostly have good interactions when stopped but had my share of bad faith actors and it will be a really bad day if you happen to come across those especially in current climate.
- dylan604 11mo agoWhile suspicious behavior is not a crime, it is certainly going to be used as probable cause. How would you think it to be any other way? See something, say something is nothing but using suspicious behavior
- andy99 11mo agoThe problem with lots of laws, often poorly thought out or framed, is that anyone can be breaking them any time, allowing law enforcement to target people or groups they don’t like with impunity. Drug laws are an obvious one, but so are traffic laws (with ever more rules about distracted driving etc, “drunk” driving ), things like loitering, all the stupid anti-free speech laws in places like the uk. People get whipped up to support laws but don’t see that more is just worse, especially the petty ones, even if they notionally correct for some bad behaviour, because they allow selective enforcement.
- sneak 11mo agoYes, but suspicious behavior (of a crime) is indeed often reasonable, articulable suspicion of a crime. Suspicious behavior is almost always one of the main, if not the only, thing establishing RAS for a Terry stop.