It is no surprise that government officials and agents have created cottage industries around ways to avoid constitutional limits on their power. They've done so since the ink was barely dry on the Bill of Rights.
But the zealousness of some local law enforcement officials to arrest, detain, and occasionally brutalize first…and maybe get around to constitutional niceties later (if at all) is still shocking. Consider this reporting in Reason about a program aimed at training local police on how to duck that whole Constitution thing entirely. Consider this list of behaviors cops are told they can use to make traffic stops:
If a driver looks away while passing a police car, cops learn from a checklist promoted at an October 2021 conference in Atlantic City, that is suspicious. But if a driver stares at the police car, that is also suspicious. Hats work both ways too: Wearing one “low to cover [your] face” is suspicious, but so is removing a hat when you are stopped by the police. Other telltale signs of criminal activity, according to Street Cop Training's list of “reasonable suspicion factors,” include texting, smoking, lip licking, yawning, stretching, talking to a passenger while keeping your eyes on the road, signaling a turn early or late, maintaining “awkward closeness” or “awkward distance” during a stop, standing parallel or perpendicular to the car, saying you are heading to work or heading home, questioning the reason for the stop, and refusing permission for a search.
In other words, drivers are damned if they do, and damned if they don't. The only goal is to pull them over, and let the real fun begin:
Even when a driver is legally pulled over for a traffic violation, the encounter is supposed to last no longer than is necessary to complete the purpose of the stop unless the officer has enough evidence to support reasonable suspicion of other illegal conduct. At the Street Cop conference, Brad Gilmore, a narcotics detective with the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office, suggested a way around that constraint: “finger-fucking” your computer or “playing Tetris.” In other words, Walsh says, Gilmore “endorsed a practice of pretending to conduct a computer lookup so an officer can illegally but surreptitiously continue an investigation during a motor vehicle stop that should have already concluded.”
How nice. But for once, all this extra-constitutional behavior was called out in a report from New Jersey's state comptroller. The report notes that aside form the cost of the seminars outlining such tactics, the possible legal costs are too high to ignore:
The costs of lawsuits alleging discrimination or harassment can be just as expensive. By one estimate, from 2019 to 2023, New Jersey police departments agreed to pay at least $87.8 million to resolve claims of misconduct by officers, and many of those claims involved harassing and discriminatory behaviors. Of course, these quantifiable high dollar amounts do not include the immeasurable and hidden cost to the victims, their families, and their communities.
The entire report is worth reading as it clarifies how any training based on unconstitutional techniques will end up costing state taxpayers plenty and doing long-term damage to law enforcement.
That such a report should have to be written is troubling. And while we should sincerely hope and fully expect the report's recommendations will be followed to prevent further damage to policing and individual rights, don't count on it.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
