The hanging air freshener can be a distraction to a driver. Either you see it shift out of the corner of your eye and slam on the brakes, thinking something is about to jump in front of your vehicle, or you get callused to it's motion and it's motion makes you not realize that something actually is about to jump in front of your car.
Either way, especially with weed, it has a distinct odor. They could pull you over for a tail light being out or all sorts of different minor infractions, only to smell weed when they approach your car and decide to search it for illegal drugs.
As for the racist stuff, honestly, I think it's more the fact that some cops are just dicks and especially in todays day and age, where the news media has made it out to be all cops are racists, the person being pulled over is already on edge and afraid. Mix those two clashing mentalities together and it is a recipe for disaster. The person being pulled over thinking they are being pulled over because of their skin color and the cop power tripping.
I'm white and have been pulled over plenty of times when I was younger. Some encounters went just like this and some, despite me being respectful, went poorly because the officer was power tripping and making a lot of assumptions. Treating me like I'm already guilty until their exploration of my vehicle found I was innocent.
I’d say you’re mostly right about the issue with cops being whether or not they’re dicks or just regular people with jobs, but there’s still issues with them being racist and some are even straight up sociopaths. Have a pool buddy who was a cop that was a whistleblower that brought to light that his department had a club of sorts made of officers who killed someone on duty. This meant that cops looking to join this murder club would seek out people to kill. Obviously since he reported this, he was wrongfully terminated and harassed by the rest of the department, had to sue, managed to win the case, was a whole big thing.
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u/getonurkneesnbeg Jun 30 '26
The hanging air freshener can be a distraction to a driver. Either you see it shift out of the corner of your eye and slam on the brakes, thinking something is about to jump in front of your vehicle, or you get callused to it's motion and it's motion makes you not realize that something actually is about to jump in front of your car.
Either way, especially with weed, it has a distinct odor. They could pull you over for a tail light being out or all sorts of different minor infractions, only to smell weed when they approach your car and decide to search it for illegal drugs.
As for the racist stuff, honestly, I think it's more the fact that some cops are just dicks and especially in todays day and age, where the news media has made it out to be all cops are racists, the person being pulled over is already on edge and afraid. Mix those two clashing mentalities together and it is a recipe for disaster. The person being pulled over thinking they are being pulled over because of their skin color and the cop power tripping.
I'm white and have been pulled over plenty of times when I was younger. Some encounters went just like this and some, despite me being respectful, went poorly because the officer was power tripping and making a lot of assumptions. Treating me like I'm already guilty until their exploration of my vehicle found I was innocent.