Woman’s bag searched on curfew stop
A woman whose car was stopped for curfew, and who had a legit letter from her employer to show the police, nonetheless had her lunch bag searched for no good reason by the cop.
Cops need to be trained not to fear looking stupid. Cop stops you, you prove you’re legit, but instead of waving you on, the cop needs to throw his weight around to save his ego. It’s stupid, but stories like this continue to pile up.
This woman was just lucky she was young, female and blonde. Some drivers are not.
Uatu 10:37 on 2021-01-13 Permalink
I think some people just became cops because they get to throw their weight around. Probably were bullied as kids and now it’s their “turn”
Jack 10:45 on 2021-01-13 Permalink
With Uatu, the only guy I ever new who became a cop had his ass handed to him in High School frequently. When we found out he became a Mountie we weren”t surprised and we were also happy that meant we wouldn’t run into him here.
jeather 10:48 on 2021-01-13 Permalink
What I don’t understand is where the cop would look stupid here. They are supposed to stop everyone! They did that, checked her details, she was allowed out, successful interaction for everyone. So it was about something else, not looking dumb.
If I had to drive to work outside of curfew time now, I’d be investing in a dash cam.
steph 11:07 on 2021-01-13 Permalink
ACAB
Michael Black 11:20 on 2021-01-13 Permalink
Maybe Kate is thinking the cop thinks this is below him, so he needs more. There seems to be resistance to dealing with “trivial” matters, even when it’s right away in front of them.
As for sloganeering, that won’t fix a thing, and neither will some hatred of cops for abstract reasons.
A year ago, still really weak, I slipped in the snow, and was looking for something I could use to leverage myself up. A cop appears and helps me up.
I still felt like I’d done something wrong, because of all the times I’d been stopped for no reason in the past, but at least the cop didn’t even ask for ID.I
Ephraim 12:09 on 2021-01-13 Permalink
She needs to book an appointment at the Commission de la Deontologie at https://deontologie-policiere.gouv.qc.ca/en/le-commissaire/nos-services/file-a-complaint.html for over-reach. In fact, people need to be pushed to do it, because if they don’t complain, they will push more and more.
As I have said before, sometimes the best way to fix things is… accounting. So, I assume that the department that checks contested tickets is likely run by the city or by the province, but bills itself separately from the police, it’s likely from an entirely other budget. That needs to be rectified. They should be sending a bill for the real costs of their service to the station of police that wrote the ticket. So, the chief of that station has to find the money… or get his officers to stop over-reaching. You can’t get something to change unless someone has to pay for it.
There should also be a cost related to the policeman, because he wrote it, so that he has to think… is this really worth my time if they can fight it and it won’t stand. But we likely can’t charge him, monetarily, because then the union can fight it. But we can require that a total of contested/unjustified tickets be kept on their personnel file and that an inquiry with his superiors be automatically required when it exceeds a certain amount and that they be required to pass a certification exam of some sort to teach them the law and when they should and shouldn’t issue a ticket.
Maybe this will or won’t work. We likely would need to try a bunch of things to see what will. But I’m sure we can find a solution that would make some of these officers recognize that MAYBE this isn’t worth it.
Bill Binns 13:23 on 2021-01-13 Permalink
This is the “discretion” Legault said he was depending on from the cops. This is what you get when you write sloppy rules.
DeWolf 13:40 on 2021-01-13 Permalink
Did the cop think she was hiding Covid in her lunch bag?
Kate 15:49 on 2021-01-13 Permalink
Maybe he liked the look of her and was trying to hold her longer at the stop, even trying to impress her with his cop power. He can’t seriously have suspected her of having contraband in a lunch bag.
Ephraim 22:10 on 2021-01-14 Permalink
Doesn’t matter. The lunch bag contents aren’t in view. He would need a warrant to search it. He should know better… and someone needs to make sure he knows it.
It’s increasingly stupid how many policemen don’t realize how many cameras are on them today. Some cars have dashcams that function all the time, including inside the car. Some cars, you hit the horn, it records the camera clip. There are cameras EVERYWHERE. Heck, mine caught the delivery person who forgot to leave my package today! Assume everything is on camera now… because it is. Some of the idiots at the Capitol are finding that out, the hard way.
JS 22:50 on 2021-01-14 Permalink
Isn’t there some law about cannabis in cars having to be stored in the trunk practically under lock & key? Maybe the cop wanted to make up for blowing the curfew thing.
Ephraim 11:28 on 2021-01-15 Permalink
@JS – Wouldn’t be admissible without the warrant, not in full view. The prosecutor would have thrown out the case and demanded that the cop be reprimanded.