According to The Guardian, police have killed nearly 600 people during traffic stops since 2017. Roughly 10% of these stops involve minor traffic infractions which equates to 110 murders annually for traffic violations. Unfortunately, deadly encounters with law enforcement during traffic stops, including minor infractions, disproportionately affect people of color. While there has been a call to reduce low level traffic stops, 25 people have been killed so far this year as of April 2022 during routine traffic stops. As most of us already know, police traffic stops have very little (if anything at all) to do with public safety. It has been shown to us time and time again that the benefits do not outweigh the deadly outcomes of these police encounters. With these statistics in mind, I am going to use my expertise as a law school graduate, police academy graduate, and minority who has been the subject of a violent police stop to explain how to survive one. The Black community ignores me; and White America constantly oppresses. No one came when my grandmother was murdered by a white EMT worker, so my perseverance is for her.
Evolution of Policing and The Reasonable Suspicion Standard:
Since the 1920s, police have been used for traffic enforcement. However, the role has evolved primarily to stop, detain, and search people they believe to be involved in criminal activity. The traffic stop is now merely the catalyst setting into motion the chain of custody, providing the officer with the required reasonable suspicion standard necessary to affect an investigative detention later on leading to an arrest if lucky-an undignified death at worst. Merriam-Webster defines reasonable suspicion as an objectively justifiable suspicion that is based on specific facts or circumstances and justifies stopping and sometimes searching (as by frisking) a person thought to be involved in criminal activity at the time. The supporting argument for this definition hinges on the false notion that this standard is in fact objective and based on specific information known to the officer at the time. While it sounds good on paper, objectively justifiable on its face is merely a compound adjective meaning action and/or behavior (in this case, suspicion) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in the representation of facts that is also defensible.
I. Fourth Amendment
Or to put it not so gently into the words of our legal system, as long as a collective group of bigots (i.e., a jury of the bigot's peers) can allege that their bigoted actions are not influenced by personal feelings or emotions in considering and representing facts, it's okay so long as their bigoted position is defensible-moreover, it will be defended snd upheld as the supreme law of the land. The standard is aimed at confirming or dismissing the officer's suspicions which are hardly free of objectivity and defensible irrespective of the officer's erroneous morale. This is not justice, and I'm pretty sure I state the obvious when I say this is not right. The Fourth Amendment, one of the pillars of criminal law, is supposed to be designed to protect people from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. In Terry v. Ohio, the U.S. Supreme Court declared open season on minorities by giving police officers not the power to stop an alleged suspect on the street (innocent until proven guilty right?) under the 4th Amendment, but also the power to frisk them without probable cause to arrest IF they have reasonable suspicion that the person has committed (reasonable), is committing (less reasonable), or is about to commit a crime (completely unreasonable) and has a reasonable belief that the person "may be armed and presently dangerous". What is considered reasonable varies from person to person and while it is reasonable to stop and frisk someone who has committed a crime (probable cause), no police officer is reasonable in violating someone's rights prior to the commission of a crime. In this 1963 landmark case, the officer was said to have reasonable suspicion based on three men pacing in front of a jewelry store and refusing to give the officer their names.
1. If You Are Stopped:
i(a). The Street: If you are stopped on the street outside of a vehicle, always remain calm. On paper, the law appears fair and just in terms of its parameters for allowing police to collect evidence and conduct investigations. Generally, there are three levels/types of police encounters: (i) voluntary/consensual encounters, (ii) investigatory stop, and (iii) an arrest. I preface this information by saying that most police encounters are not consensual and this should be placated by the fact that this article concerns surviving a police stop (i.e., encounter). However, we will start with consensual encounters. I repeat, remain calm. A consensual encounter involves someone being approached by the police and the police officer initiating a conversation with the individual being approached. Typically, and this is where it gets dicey, the officer will ask to see a form of identification, the same as they would during a "routine" traffic stop. The encounter SHOULD involve the person approached being able to walk away, having the right to decline identifying themselves to the police, and being able to voluntarily communicate to law enforcement that they do not wish to speak to them. It SHOULD NOT involve police barking out commands, any kind of physical commands, the police turning on lights or sirens, restricting a person's ability to move freely, or the use of physical force. More often than not, this is not the case. The next type of encounter is an investigatory detention, or Terry Stop: The police are allowed to briefly stop someone when officers have reasonable suspicion that a person may be involved in criminal activity. The problem with investigatory detentions is that they give law enforcement the right to preemptively stop someone if they believe a crime has been committed (reasonable), in process (less reasonable), or is about to be committed (completely unreasonable). And lastly, there are arrests. An officer needs probable cause (i.e., a police officer's good faith belief that a crime has been committed and the person being arrested committed the crime) in order to affect an arrest. Good faith, or blind ignorance?
i(b). Violation of Rights on The Street: During a so-called consensual encounter, Remain calm, and since critical thinking has been removed from the American curriculum, scan your surroundings. Scanning gives a person the advantage of fully accessing the totality of their circumstances and actively checking the surrounding area for indications as to whether or not his or her rights are being actively violated. Furthermore, if you are a savvy individual who knows your rights and armed with the proper information to articulate them, while not a safeguard against violation of those rights, it is an excellent tool for prevention. If your life is not in immediate threat of danger and there is 100% certainty of your innocence and the laws applicable to your situation, DO NOT COMPLY. If it is matter of life and death, live to fight another day. However, simply complying with illegitimate acts of violence against members of the American public legitimizes illegitimate, corrupt power. To quote the honorable Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere". The key things to remember during a consensual encounter is to ask yourself, "Would an average person feel as though they were free to leave the situation"? This is the legal standard by which the law will judge your circumstances.
Next, are investigatory detentions. As previously stated, you are not free to walk away during an investigatory detention so long as the officer has reasonable suspicion that the person may be involved in a crime. The detention however, must be brief. NOTE THE TIME OF THE STOP, record whenever possible, and have a trusted friend or witness present either by phone or preferably, in-person. Remember, officers only have the right to Terry Frisk for weapons without probable cause and this is a limited search for weapons ONLY. A Terry Frisk is a limited search for weapons. Generally, of the outer clothing, but may also consist of areas within the person's control and which pose a danger to the officer. Here, biases will be challenged, does a person pose a danger because of their location, skin color, clothing, education, or demeanor based on their own unique human experiences?
ii(a) Inside A Vehicle: If you are stopped by the police while inside a vehicle, remain calm. Stop the car in a safe place, preferably one with adjacenet cameras and lots of pedestrian activity. Next, shut off the ignitition, turn on the internal cabin light,row down the window part way, and place your hands on the steering wheel. It is sad that civilians have to come up with a solid gameplan to survive a traffice stop and work hard to ensure that our protectors feel comfortable in order not to take our lives. However, this is the sci-fi around us and I suppose we all have to adjust accordingly if we wish to live. Vehicular stops are unique in that the same oppressive tactics are used, the case law simply changes. In Carroll v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled that is legal to search a vehcile without a search warrant if the officer has probable cause to believe that evidence is inside a car or exigent circumstances exist where officer believes vehicle may be removed from the area along with its contents prior to being able to obtain a search warrant.
II. Fifth Amendment:
The Fifth Amendment protects people against double jeopardy, being compelled to bear witness against themselves, or depriving a person against deprivation of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation. It protects against other things as well, but for purposes of this article, I'm only exploring its most applicable functions. In 2004, nineteen years after Terry v. Ohio, the Supreme Court ruled in Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada, that laws require citizens to disclose their identities to police officers and that the person must comply when the police officer has reasonable suspicion of a crime that is about to be committed or has been committed or the citizen will be charged with obstruction of justice. Once again, given the amount of people being wrongfully profiled and murdered by police, it is past time that America revisits what is considered as reasonable. Chambers v. Florida made a feeble attempt to resurrect the self-incrimination clause of the 5th Amendment essentially by outlawing torture as a means of extracting confessions out of alleged suspects. Furthermore, not only is physical torture of American citizens not an ethical way of getting information, but physical pain has the tendency to make confessions unreliable. Moreover, even after an arrest, a person is to be read their Miranda Rights which includes the right to remain silent. The things we say, even when we are innocent with good intentions, has the potential to affect our lives in either a positive or negative aspect.
III. Sixth Amendment:
The Sixth Amendment guarantees the rights of the criminally accused to a public trial without unecessary delay, an impartial jury, the right to seek counsel, the nature of the charges, and confront all accusers. The most important of these guarantees in criminal law are, the right to a public trial without undue delay and the right to an impartial jury. Sadly, due to a lack of funding in public education and resources, it has been commonly accepted that no more than about 5% of all crminal cases ever go to trial. The other 95% are either dismissed or a plea bargain is arranged between defendant, the defendant's attorney, and the prosecutor for a "compromised" disposition. The bigger picture being, only 5% of the American people are actually making thier accusers and prosecutors work to prove that they are in fact guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. In a crminal case, the prosecution must prove the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt which means that the arguments and evidence presented by the prosecution establishes the defendant's guilt so clearly that they must accept be accepted as fact by any rational person. This is a very difficult stanadard to meet. It only seems rational that Defendants would actually may the government work in order to satisfy it. However, the numbers show this is far from the case. The most important takeway from this article is to never surrender your rights without being informed of your rights and the process in which to take them.IV. Conclusion
I tried not to bombard the reader with my own story and the injustices therein, but experience is an excellent teacher. I learned that sometimes knowing the law, the process, and what my rights are within these parameters will still not be enought to prevent inequities from occurring. However, knowledge will prevent them from prevailing. Police were unable to file charges after harrassing and physically assaulting, and towing my vehicle. I did not receive any financial compensation for the harms committed against, but I did gain a lot of dignnitiy and a victory knowing that I changed the situation through knowledge instead of allowing the situation to change me or my criminal record.“Reasonable suspicion.” Merriam-Webster.com Legal Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/legal/reasonable%20suspicion. Accessed 22 Nov. 2022.
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