I love how the media calls a police officer pulling a car over as “routine.” Usually, the headlines go like this, “Officer killed during a routine traffic stop.” Or, “Officer found 2 kilos of drugs during a routine traffic stop.” Now, I’m only going to say this once, there is no such thing as a routine traffic stop. I’ve been a cop for over 10 years and did not have one routine traffic stop. Have I pulled over compliant individuals? Absolutely. For the most part, those I have pulled over turned out to have either several warrants for their arrest, unregistered sex offenders, drug dealers, and other violent felons.
I have recently noticed this call by several cities in the U.S. to have traffic enforcement conducted by a civilian authority and not the police. The reasoning I’ve heard is because routine traffic stops disproportionately impact Black and Brown drivers, who are pulled over and searched more often than white drivers, leading to potentially stressful interactions with the police. Ok, so I have a strong issue with that statement. I have pulled over every single type of ethnicity known to man. Do you know when I know who I’m dealing with? When I interact with the driver. A motor vehicle moving at 45 miles an hour, it is nearly impossible to know what the driver looks like. Now add tinted windows, which is more of the norm these days, I can’t even see inside the car.
One of my close friends, who is a white police officer, once pulled a car over for revoked registration due to no car insurance. The officer approached the driver, the windows were tinted, the driver rolls down the window, and immediately yells at my friend for being a racist. The officer argued with the driver stating that they couldn’t see inside the car to see who was driving because of the tints on their windows. The driver’s mind was already made up though. The reason they were pulled over was not that their registration is revoked but because they were white. Here once again, a not so routine traffic stop.
I’m going to throw some statistics at you…if you’re one of those that do not care for facts and more into informational bias then this is the wrong article to read.
This information came from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. In 2015, the bureau conducted a comprehensive analysis of police to public contacts. Below were the results:
Presents data on the nature and frequency of contact between police and U.S. residents age 16 or older, including demographic characteristics of residents, the reason for and outcomes of the contact, police threats or use of nonfatal force, and residents’ perceptions of police behavior during the contact.
Highlights:
The portion of U.S. residents age 16 or older who had contact with the police in the preceding 12 months declined from 26% in 2011 to 21% in 2015, a drop of more than 9 million people (from 62.9 million to 53.5 million).
The number of persons experiencing police-initiated contact fell by 8 million (down 23%), the number of persons who initiated contact with the police fell by 6 million (down 19%), and the number experiencing contact from traffic accidents did not change significantly.
Whites (23%) were more likely than blacks (20%) or Hispanics (17%) to have contact with police.
Police were equally likely to initiate contact with blacks and whites (11% each) but were less likely to initiate contact with Hispanics (9%).
Here comes the kicker of cities and towns taking traffic enforcement away from police and giving it to civilians, who work for the city’s traffic and parking unit. So according to law, when a police officer activates their blue lights, that means you are detained. A civilian does not have that authority. How about if this civilian discovers some sort of crime within a motor vehicle, by law, they are not cops, they would have to call the police. The question is will they? If these unarmed civilians get assaulted because they issued a ticket, will they call the police with assistance? Probably, now this becomes another problem for the police to deal with.
These civilian traffic units, will they have discretion? Discretion is a huge part of giving motorists warning or tickets. Officers across the country have the choice as to whether or not to issue tickets. Police Departments should not be used as another revenue builder for the city or town. I can see that those civilian traffic units become a type of “business” for the city to make profits.
There is a bigger issue here. The Constitution, through the Fourth Amendment, protects people. from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. The Fourth Amendment, however, is not a guarantee against all searches and seizures, but only those that are deemed unreasonable under the law. So where will those civilian traffic units fall under the US Constitution? There are so many types of case law involving police officers and searching of someone’s car. Below are some of the cases that were involved in the searching of a car.
Arizona v. Gant, 129 S. Ct. 1710 (2009). An officer may conduct a traffic stop if he has reasonable suspicion that a traffic violation has occurred or that criminal activity is afoot.
Berekmer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420 (1984), United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266 (2002). An officer may conduct a pat-down of the driver and passengers during a lawful traffic stop; the police need not believe that any occupant of the vehicle is involved in criminal activity.
Arizona v. Johnson, 555 U.S. 323 (2009). The use of a narcotics detection dog to walk around the exterior of a car subject to a valid traffic stop does not require reasonable, explainable suspicion.
Illinois v. Cabales, 543 U.S. 405 (2005). Special law enforcement concerns will sometimes justify highway stops without any individualized suspicion.
Illinois v. Lidster, 540 U.S. 419 (2004). An officer at an international border may conduct routine stops and searches.
Illinois v. Lidster, 540 U.S. 419 (2004). However, a state may not use a highway checkpoint program whose primary purpose is the discovery and interdiction of illegal narcotics.
City of Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U.S. 32 (2000).
A lot of laws were based on police officers doing their jobs and 99% of cops do the right thing. What I fear, is the citizens being punished more than anything else. The number of times I’ve personally pulled cars over and discovered drugs, guns, stolen goods, and all kinds of other crimes are too many to list. Good cops with great investigative techniques can do a lot of good out in the world. These defunding movements, I fear, are going to set us back several years because in my experience, the first thing to go, is the training budget.
__________________
This first appeared in The Havok Journal on August 4, 2020.
Ayman is an Army Veteran who was deployed during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2005 and became a police officer in 2007 after 8 years of military service. He has worked in the patrol division, in a plainclothes anti-crime unit, as a Metro-SWAT operator, and as a detective in a major crimes unit, as a narcotics task force detective with the DEA, and as an operator with the DEA Special Response Team (SRT). He also helped organize SRT operations in Southern New England.
As an assistant team leader, he assisted and coordinated the planning of operations as well as conducted various aspects of training. He has investigated high-level drug traffickers, gang members, and conducted numerous operations. He is currently the Officer in Charge of the Problem-Oriented Policing Unit. Ayman is a law enforcement firearms instructor, a less-than-lethal weapons instructor, a certified use of force instructor at his police department Ayman’s hands-on experience with law enforcement operations at many different levels coupled with his compassion to save lives has brought him to coordinate “Project Sapient.”
This initiative is a joint effort comprised of law enforcement professionals of all levels combined with the Special Forces philosophy of winning hearts and minds. Ayman has found that to reach more officers and departments, it is important to share his experience with media outlets that reach law enforcement.
He regularly contributes to The Havok Journal, writing articles that provide insight into current law enforcement trends and methodologies to help officers become better equipped to handle an ever-changing work environment.
Project Sapient is currently a Podcast. Ayman’s vision of Project Sapient is to eventually train other law enforcement officers and civilians alike in stress inoculation. Something that is sorely needed in the Law Enforcement profession. In his writing, Ayman draws from his hands-on experience as both a law enforcement professional and his military service.
For years, Ayman has seen the trend in lack of training policing. Whether it’s budget cuts, political enemies, or ineffective policy, Ayman has made it his mission to bring innovation, unconventional policing methods, and to have those tough conversations and instruction to assist law enforcement to better relate with and advise communities.
He sees firsthand the need for better training and tools for law enforcement to serve their communities most effectively. A better-trained officer is what policing a free society requires.
© 2023 The Havok Journal
The Havok Journal welcomes re-posting of our original content as long as it is done in compliance with our Terms of Use.
