How long's a traffic stop?

[lm/]

Hi,
I feel like I was stopped for an unreasonable amount of time for minor stuff and I was wondering what an average time might be for this.

Me and friends went to grab lunch. We were going back to school, I got pulled over, cop said I didn't stop at a stop sign. Yeah, ok, I California rolled it. He asks me questions/license/all that stuff. He writes me a ticket. Then he goes "your car smells really strongly of marijuana" (no, it doesn't). Then he wants us all out of the car. Then he wants to interrogate all of us. Then he wants to know if I want to 'tell him anything about what's in the car', I can tell he's checking out my eyes and everything. Then he searches all through the car. Some other cop arrives. They can't find anything. Then he says they're getting a dog since it smells SO strongly. And we're like "come on...we gotta go to school...". So we wait for the dog. The dog runs around. Then it hits on some spot. Then the cops are all over it. They find nothing. They look again. Then again. Then all through the car again. Nothing. They look like they're about to start searching all over again so I just go "there was a little pot in that spot recently". I figure they can't charge me with anything from that and more importantly, they might leave. One cop tries to interrogate me about that statement but I was like "I don't have anything else to say" (I can't be bothered making up a whole story, just let us leave). They look real close at that spot, sniff it, lick it. Have another casual look through the car. Then they huddle and decide we can leave. And then school was angry about us being so late back.

So...I'm wondering - how long would you expect all that to take? (I guess ignoring the dog's travel time, I know that could change it all) I'm just curious about whether that really took for ever or if that's to be expected...

By the way - what a waste of time...legalize it. That all looked like bad use of resources to me. I mean, there's unsolved murders around the place...it seems obvious to me that you can't hide a really BIG amount of marijuana easily in a car so after the first search, they should have figured out they were looking for a really small amount if there was some (3 cops and a dog, taking that long, really?)... After school I grabbed a friend, a complete innocent bystander and I was like, hey, can you get in my car, does it smell like pot? And he goes "...umm....only like a little bit...it smells more like McDs" (SO strongly).

[Jim1348]

How long was it?

[txinvestigator1]

Hi,
They look real close at that spot, sniff it, lick it.




I grabbed a friend, a complete innocent bystander and I was like, hey, can you get in my car, does it smell like pot? And he goes "...umm....only like a little bit...it smells more like McDs" (SO strongly).

troll

[ChesCopPodz]

The "guidline" at my department is 20 minutes unless the investigation is moving forward.

Maybe the "strongly" was exaggerated, but if a complete stranger gets in your car and admits it smells like weed, then the cops had every right to search your car since they smelled it too. So in this case, the 20 minutes wouldn't count since they did smell weed, and were investigating whether or not there was any in your car.

[G35 Mass]

However long is reasonable.

[mcsap]

I wasn't supposed to go over 2 hours unless I had a really good reason.

The Police are to investigate suspicious activity. They aren't always right but when they have something to go on.....they go on it.

If they don't spend enough time investigating an incident , they might miss important evidence. If you are the person on the receiving end of that investigation , any time is too long.

Don't hang with dopers ( or don't be one) whichever applies.

[Citicop]

The odor of an illegal drug in the car expanded the scope of the stop from a simple traffic stop into a drug investigation.

Both a trained police officer and a trained and certified K9 detected the odor of an illegal drug in the car, and you admitted that you had possessed illegal drugs in that vehicle in the recent past.

I see no wrongdoing on the part of the police here. Your detention seems to have been reasonable and lawful.

[DeltaV]

You're lucky. If a car smells like pot and a dog hits on a specific area after I can't find anything, I literally will tear the car apart, including pulling out paneling, radios, air vents, etc. And yes, it's perfectly legal to do that.

[lm/]

Approx 70 minutes. The dog didn't take that long to get there either, about 10 minutes.

and you admitted that you had possessed illegal drugs in that vehicle in the recent past.

Yeah, only in like minute 63. In an attempt at getting them to leave.

If they don't spend enough time investigating an incident , they might miss important evidence.

What, Like a seed? (70 minutes, 3 cops, a dog...and a potential seed) You don't think it became a waste of time at some point? You don't think it was overkill?

You're lucky. If a car smells like pot and a dog hits on a specific area after I can't find anything, I literally will tear the car apart, including pulling out paneling, radios, air vents, etc. And yes, it's perfectly legal to do that.

Yeah, that's part of the reason that I spoke up. I was worried they might try to get in somewhere. The dog was interested in the floor (weird) so, I guess you can't really go far with pulling that apart. The dog was interested in something that was already wide open. The cops looked real close at it. To be honest, it seemed ridiculous - I was kind of like, at this point you're going to find maybe a stem or a seed, we can already all tell this isn't going to be your career high big drug bust - really, you're still looking? Were they just bored? Nothing else to do on a weekday afternoon? Meanwhile I'm missing my science class...

troll

I don't understand the connection between the quotes you picked out and 'troll'?
(tho, ok, I admit they didn't actually lick my car)


It wasn't a complete stranger who got in my car, it was a friend. I called him 'innocent bystander' because he wasn't involved in the stop at all.

[Citicop]

It doesn't matter WHY you admitted the criminal activity. Even without e admission, they had plenty of justification.

You had dope in thecar. If you had never had illegal drugs in the car, then there's no odor, there's no dog (and even if there is, the dog doesn't alert) and you get a ticket or warning and are back on your way much faster.

Again, the officers did nothing wrong here.

[lm/]

You had dope in thecar.

Hmm. Dog was mistaken with its alert.

And the car did not smell 'really strongly of marijuana' to begin with. I'm a careful kind of guy. I don't disagree that they had the right to search the car. Just, you know, search it and move on. If you're not going to find it, you're not going to find it.

[Citicop]

Hmm. Dog was mistaken with its alert.

No it wasn't.

By your own admission, you have had in the past (or had at the time of the stop) drugs in the car. So you'll need to sell that elsewhere, no one here's buying it.

So I'm not sure what else you're lookmg for. You agree they could search, and we've explained that the time is not out of bounds given the situation.

The situation was self inflicted.

[lm/]

No it wasn't.

Yeah it was, it was off the mark.

So I'm not sure what else you're lookmg for. You agree they could search, and we've explained that the time is not out of bounds given the situation.

I don't know man, I guess I'm just trying to understand the process behind it. 3 cops and a dog took 70 minutes to find nothing. They looked repetitively in the same places. If it wasn't there the 1st time, it's not going to magically be there the 7th time.

So...why waste so much time? Maybe psychological...and yeah, it got me to say "fine, I had pot there once some other time" just to make it end so we could leave - maybe it does work, they just didn't get the confession from me that they wanted.

[Citicop]

How about you tell us how much dope that was in the car that they missed?

[lm/]

How about you tell us how much dope that was in the car that they missed?

Hmm. Alright, to be honest, I guess you might call it 1/32nd to be generous. Bout 1/2 a 16th, at the very most. That's not enough to make the car smell really strongly of weed, sitting where it was, packed how it was (and the car did smell like McDs at the same time). I think sometimes cops just say a car smells like weed - I know you won't confirm/deny that. Not telling you where it was. DeltaV may have found it. Maybe.
I think the dog did smell it but it got distracted (ha, I know why too, maybe the cops didn't want to get as close as they did, but I know I cleaned it well).
I still think the cops were more suspicious than they had reason to be. Legally - that was a real minor amount - I just think that the response was greater than it needed to be. It seemed like too much effort by the cops to be honest - sure, search and make sure I'm not some big time dealer but by the time they got to the 7th search - they had run out of any big size places to look, it was never going to be much... Don't you feel like that's a waste of time yourself?
I don't make a habit of carrying btw.