[Manbearpig]

Originally Posted by F-16 Camaro

I'm trying to establish your threshold. Play along.

When does it become excessive for you?

My threshold? Ok.

For the sake of argument, and because it's a common middle ground. We'll use OP's story.

Let's pretend for a moment this thread was created specifically to outline OP's interaction with another person. No officer involved so obviously no threat etc etc. Person makes snide comment to OP upon him getting out of his car. OP responds in kind.

Is that person who made the snide comment harassing him, or is he a jackass?

Let's build on this;

Let's go back to the scene for OP.

Did the officer demand he get out the car to be searched? No.

Did the officer search the car? No.

Did the officer threaten or otherwise use excessive force? No.

Has OP dealt with the officer in multiple occurrences? No.

Did OP get arrested? No.

Did officer follow OP home, to work, to gas station? Has said officer even been in OP's LIFE prior to this incident? No.

Did OP even get issued a BS ticket? No? No.

Now let's take this a step further, and remember this story is one-sided. How about the officer? Was he on patrol for any sort of 20 circumstances that could have led to him speaking to OP? (matching description, DUIs, etc. etc.)

So let's recap, officers are made of people (last I checked), officer did not exercise any of his power over OP besides saying jackass things. OP does not report a issue prior or after dealing with the same officer. My conclusion? OP met a jackass with a badge. Outside of a minor inconvenience he was mostly left alone. Riddle me this O' champion, if the officer was on patrol for any kind of outlying circumstance, happened upon OP, concluded he did not fit the description, decided to be a jackass (because some people are jackasses for no reason) and played it up after OP responded but did nothing specifically against OP besides talk, does that make the encounter harassment, or was the officer just being a jackass?

My threshold is that harassment exists, it does happen, and not everything is bloody harassment.

[F-16 Camaro]

Removing the officer from the scenario bypasses the entire debate. So I ask again, how many unfounded traffic stops by a police officer is too many for you

[F-16 Camaro]

So now that I'm at home and on a computer I can really explain my point.

When a cop turns on his lights to initiate a stop, by law you HAVE to stop. Your scenario about a non-cop stopping you and carrying on a civil conversation is completely irrelevant because I'm not REQUIRED to stop for some schmuck. If I choose to that's fine. And you won't find me being combative because I did so willfully. And I'm not combative with the police officer until he begins wasting my time with small talk. If a cop pulled me over he should state his reason. I will not tell him where I'm going, or how I afford my car.

But in the OPs scenario(which I accept could be biased or simply baseless) the cop didn't begin with any infractions and only gave a lame excuse about noise and walked off. If we believe the OP, it is a gross abuse of power because the officer only cited exhaust noise on a STOCK CAMARO. I imagine Chevrolet goes to extreme lengths to assure their stock cars meet all noise standards in the country in which they do business.

I think the cop was either fishing for some sort of slip up by the OP, or was bored and thought the car was cool. Neither of which are acceptable to stop a citizen in an official capacity.

If he thinks the car is cool, feel free to follow it to a stop light and roll down the windows and talk to the OP. But to perform a traffic stop without reason is an abuse.

[JTruck]

Originally Posted by F-16 Camaro

So now that I'm at home and on a computer I can really explain my point.

When a cop turns on his lights to initiate a stop, by law you HAVE to stop. Your scenario about a non-cop stopping you and carrying on a civil conversation is completely irrelevant because I'm not REQUIRED to stop for some schmuck. If I choose to that's fine. And you won't find me being combative because I did so willfully. And I'm not combative with the police officer until he begins wasting my time with small talk. If a cop pulled me over he should state his reason. I will not tell him where I'm going, or how I afford my car.

But in the OPs scenario(which I accept could be biased or simply baseless) the cop didn't begin with any infractions and only gave a lame excuse about noise and walked off. If we believe the OP, it is a gross abuse of power because the officer only cited exhaust noise on a STOCK CAMARO. I imagine Chevrolet goes to extreme lengths to assure their stock cars meet all noise standards in the country in which they do business.

I think the cop was either fishing for some sort of slip up by the OP, or was bored and thought the car was cool. Neither of which are acceptable to stop a citizen in an official capacity.

If he thinks the car is cool, feel free to follow it to a stop light and roll down the windows and talk to the OP. But to perform a traffic stop without reason is an abuse.

This really shouldn't be an argument or discussion anymore, look at the post at the top of page 2.

[Manbearpig]

Originally Posted by F-16 Camaro

So now that I'm at home and on a computer I can really explain my point.

When a cop turns on his lights to initiate a stop, by law you HAVE to stop. Your scenario about a non-cop stopping you and carrying on a civil conversation is completely irrelevant because I'm not REQUIRED to stop for some schmuck. If I choose to that's fine. And you won't find me being combative because I did so willfully. And I'm not combative with the police officer until he begins wasting my time with small talk. If a cop pulled me over he should state his reason. I will not tell him where I'm going, or how I afford my car.

But in the OPs scenario(which I accept could be biased or simply baseless) the cop didn't begin with any infractions and only gave a lame excuse about noise and walked off. If we believe the OP, it is a gross abuse of power because the officer only cited exhaust noise on a STOCK CAMARO. I imagine Chevrolet goes to extreme lengths to assure their stock cars meet all noise standards in the country in which they do business.

I think the cop was either fishing for some sort of slip up by the OP, or was bored and thought the car was cool. Neither of which are acceptable to stop a citizen in an official capacity.

If he thinks the car is cool, feel free to follow it to a stop light and roll down the windows and talk to the OP. But to perform a traffic stop without reason is an abuse.

And you're absolutely right, the OP's rights were impeded on. This is something both of us has said since whatever page this began.

But a violation of rights does not equal harassment. Correlation does not equal causation.

I mentioned the schmuck to make a point in response to this claim of harassment. We could throw a badge on him and enact the same situation. Obviously the cop is a moron but are you harassed? Not in the slightest outside of some inconvenience. OP dealt with a officer who got big in the head after being shut down in his snideness. As you stated yourself, GM is proactive in ensuring any car coming from the factory is street legal. It would tarnish their company name otherwise. You know as well as I do that if OP's situation were to reach a court of law (the formal place to determine the rights of both officer and defendant) the court would rule in favor of OP.

Again, we need to look at every factor regarding this story. The fact remains we do not have the full story. We have no idea if said officer pulls him over by mistake, if said officer was unprofessional, if said officer knew OP, I could go on and on. The fact remains the officer has the right to pull OP over, it is well within his jurisdiction. OP's rights were impeded on once the officer decided to be cute with him and ONLY at that point. As it stands we have no idea why OP was truly pulled over. We can only assume. The fact that the officer left it at a BS warning tells me he was well aware he was treading dangerous water at that point as well, in which if the officer had done something OP would have taken it to court and claimed harassment.

Being combative with the officer is just as wrong, and worse for you in the long run considering if something happens it's your word vs an LEOs. The appropriate measures as OP demonstrated and as been mentioned is to deal with the cop in a civilized manner, if he pulls some crap then to contest it in court and file a complaint. This is the way to ensure your rights are respected correctly. It has nothing to do with being ok with said violation of rights, it has everything to do with covering your ass and putting you in position to defend yourself.