Visual Evidence: A DUI Checkpoint in Action
This video tries to show what can happen when a driver who stays completely within the law tries to exercise his rights guaranteed to him/her by the Bill of Rights. What tends to happen is that those rights are severely violated. The violations against this driver's rights are many, and begin from the very moment he is stopped at the checkpoint. We have already established that being stopped at a suspicionless checkpoint is a violation of the 4th amendment. But in accordance with the law, the driver stops at the checkpoint and makes contact with the officer. This is the only thing he is legally obligated to do according to the Supreme Court ruling. The Court also ruled that the scope of the stop must only be drunk driving. Strangely, the officer never mentions alcohol or any other drunk driving related topic, but is instead focused on the position of the window. He demands that the window be lowered even though contact has been made. They can both hear and see each other perfectly fine and he is not legally obligated to roll his window down any more than what is necessary to make contact. The officer then asks the driver his age. The driver knows he is ensured the right against self-incrimination by the 5th amendment but is unsure whether the Court has ruled that he must answer this question so he asks the officer. This is a bad mistake. The officer does not have to tell the truth about the law and can easily tell the driver that he must obey him and this is what he does. The driver believes him and says that he is 21 years old. The officer directs the driver to a place known as 'secondary'. This is a place outside of the road where the police can further interrogate someone while they make room for the other drivers. According to the Supreme Court, an officer may not lawfully direct a driver to secondary unless the officer has reasonable suspicion to believe that the driver has committed a crime. The driver knows this and asks whether he is being detained. If he is indeed being detained, the officer would also need probable cause to do so. No probable cause exists so the officer does not answer. Instead, he raises his voice in an attempt to intimidate the driver and he orders the driver out of the car as he tries to open the door to the car. This too is illegal since the driver has not displayed probable cause. The driver seems to be affected by the intimidation and pulls over to secondary and gets out of his car at request of the officer. He should not have done this but since he appears to be affected by the intimidation, he complies. While outside the officer demands ID. He does not have to comply with this because he is no longer in the vehicle and has not provided reasonable suspicion. The officer asks if he can search the car. What any of this has to do with drunk driving we will never know, but thankfully, the driver refuses the search as he may do according to the Supreme Court. The officers then bring over a police dog. This is a violation of the 4th amendment but not a violation of the law since the police do not need probable cause to call in the dog. Even though calling in a dog on a person who has displayed no probable cause makes no sense, they are allowed to do it. The dog handler apparently falsifies an alert which is obviously illegal and the cops then search the car. At this point any illusion of this being about drunk driving has long since passed. There is no reason for a drug dog to be there in the first place if the intent is to stop drunk driving. After nothing is found it is painfully obvious that the alert was falsified and the video ends. It is obvious that the actions of this police force have violated this man's rights. The man could have made it a better case by not following the unlawful order to pull over to secondary but understandably, he felt threatened by the officer and decided it was in his best interest to comply with the unlawful order than be forcibly removed from the car and possibly injured. I think the man did a decent job at proving his point but there were some things he could have done differently.