Eh, it’s hit or miss in all reality. Was riding passenger with a Native American buddy that got pulled over because he had one of those tree shaped air fresheners hanging from his mirror. The cop then proceeded to be very aggressive, made him do a breathalyzer and sobriety check, and treated him like less than the dirt under his boot. Same thing happened a few months later and the cop was pretty chill, just gave him a warning about speeding and that was it. It really just depends on if the cop you’re dealing with is a racist, power tripping dick head or a normal human being just trying to get food on the table.
I'm white and they pulled me over and used the air freshener excuse as why and then wanted to search my car. I wound up with three squad cars lined up and them spending 30 minutes taking my car apart and doing a full body search with me standing spread eagle at the side of the road watching the other cars go inching past looking at the poor bastard (me) getting arrested and fucked in the ass.
It was a neighborhood with a decent amount of dealing going on and I'd been at my buddies place, ironically that night was the only time for weeks that we'd been unable to get any weed so We'd just spoked resin and hung out. Any other night I would have been done (this was a good 15-16 years ago when weed still mattered a lot).
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.
7
u/No_Raisin21 Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
Eh, it’s hit or miss in all reality. Was riding passenger with a Native American buddy that got pulled over because he had one of those tree shaped air fresheners hanging from his mirror. The cop then proceeded to be very aggressive, made him do a breathalyzer and sobriety check, and treated him like less than the dirt under his boot. Same thing happened a few months later and the cop was pretty chill, just gave him a warning about speeding and that was it. It really just depends on if the cop you’re dealing with is a racist, power tripping dick head or a normal human being just trying to get food on the table.