Dec 30, 2011
Police destroy a BMW while looking for drugs that aren’t there
From The Star-Ledger…
When Pompton Lakes police seized Darren Richardson’s car on a rainy September afternoon, they told him it was headed for an impound lot. When they returned it three weeks later, he says, the 2004 BMW belonged in a junk yard.
The instrument cluster and leather dashboard were gone. The caramel-colored seats were torn up. The gear shift was ripped out and stray wires hung limp everywhere. Geico, Richardson’s insurance company estimated the damage at $12,636.42 — more than he paid for the car — and declared the vehicle a “total loss.”
According to police reports, the damage to the black BMW 325i came in the aftermath of a traffic stop during which officers detected a “strong odor of raw marijuana” inside the vehicle. Searching for a cache of drugs, members of three different police agencies and a detective from a federal drug task force spent two days tearing the car apart, the reports said.
So what did police find after their $12,000 search?
Absolutely nothing.
(via Weird Universe)
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well, that was a little ridiculous wasn’t it?
little Napoleons
That’ll teach the guy for wearing his Mary Jane aftershave….
Is this where we start talking about legalization of marijuana?
I’d just settle for the criminalization of the police state.
Perhaps police departments should be required to pay for anything they tear up if they find nothing. Yes, legalization of drugs would be better though.
Oh, I was going to say, I’m amazed the owner of the car wasn’t sent a bill for the two days of labor involved in shredding his car.
Often this is punitive, a move taken when the civilian ‘has an attitude’ and yet has done nothing the officer can write him for. The cop can simply say, “I smell pot!” and take your vehicle. Even if they find nothing, you are still walking. Not to mention, you also get to pay for impound, etc. This has happened to a number of people I personally know, including family members, this is not guesswork. It depends which side of town you live on in Tulsa, OK. You don’t have to be doing anything bad at all. I was stopped for driving home from a movie with my teen son in the car, because Tulsa has a curfew. Nothing illegal about having MY SON in my car after curfew; the curfew only applies to teens driving *without an adult in the car.* He was feeling ill, and had the window down, to get a cool breeze in his face. The cops pulled us over and were visibly disgusted when they discovered that the ‘kid’ with the punk colored hair driving the car was a legal adult. There was considerable grumbling, and they spent *quite* a bit of time wandering around checking my vehicle to see if there was *anything* they could cite me for. Unfortunately for them, I have no record, no outstanding traffic tickets, and my better half keeps the car in immaculate condition. Tags were in date. Both of us were wearing restraints. The car was fully insured. They grew increasingly surly as every possible avenue to make something out of this stop evaporated. They tried everything possible to goad my son into reacting (fortunately, even as a teen he had *some* brains) and finally gave it up as a bad go, but they were clearly dissatisfied. I know for a *fact* that had I responded with any ire to being unreasonably detained due to a bad guess on their part, I would have suffered the consequences, quite possibly including being jailed for “interfering.” Think I’m being paranoid or unfair? Not so. I watched as a neighbor was stopped, a scant two weeks previously, in a “speed trap” where basically people were randomly herded off the road and cited for speeding, whether they were or no. (Well, not truly random; I note that they were careful not to pull any *expensive* cars off the road, clearly not wishing to deal with anyone well-heeled enough to afford an attorney.) I know this was a bogus ‘trap’ because I was aware of the police presence, and at no time did my speed even REACH the limit, I was carefully driving three miles under it, yet I too was pulled over and told I was ‘speeding’ and they had it on ‘radar.’ My neighbor, foolishly thinking he was dealing with law enforcement agents and not paid highwaymen, asked to see the radar. The cop smirked and said too bad, he had cleared the screen. When the neighbor insisted they were not speeding, and wanted to know what proof they had if they had cleared the radar gun, he was hustled out of his car and slammed against the side of it and put in cuffs. He did now swear, he did not yell at the officers… so what was the reason for this? Because they COULD. This is why we have rampant LE abuse in this nation; they are excused again and again, the old saw about how ‘hard’ and ‘dangerous’ their job is, used as a front to defend and excuse abuse of authority. And until we stop being complacent about it, it isn’t going to stop.
Welcome to Jersey. Where we take racial profiling to a high art and DWB is an automatic fine.
I wonder why didn’t they use one of those police dogs that sniff drugs? It would have save destroying that beautiful and expensive vehicle. I do realize that most of these drug dealers have come up with some ways of hiding that stuff so I don’t really blame the police. Maybe they were smoking some stuff and that is what they smelled. Are they going to reimburse him?
This article is a little biased. If you read the original article then you can see that he’s had a slight history with drug possession and argued with the cops.
“The ordeal began Sept. 23 when Lt. Moises Agosto stopped Richardson after he nearly caused a traffic accident at Wanaque and Colfax avenues, according to police reports. Richardson — who served two years in prison for a drug charge and admits he “doesn’t trust cops” — began arguing with Agosto, the reports said.”
i had a simular thing happen but not as bad i was headed to a club with my bf(my husband now) and his step brother…i was driving, my bf was in the passanger seat and and his step brother was in the back of my vehicle..his step brother dropped a lighter and it fell in the seat so he was trying to find it to light his cigg well being we were in a different state we got pulled over and they asked to search my car cause they suspected he was stuffing drugs in my seat i allowed them to cause i had nothing to hide they tore up the back seat of my car and pulled the bottom of the back seat up and left it that way they didnt even try to fix it here they wrote me up for my tag light being out and told me i had to get it fixed…the messed up part of it all they didnt even bother to search the trunk (not like i had anything in it) but if i did they would have completely missed it instead they were too worried about the back seat all because of a lighter and to top it off the funny part is i had a bouquet of flowers from my prom on my dash (fake flower of course) and it had baby breath on it and some of the baby breath fell where the stick shift was and well the one cop must have thought is was drugs cause he smelled and tasted it, i hope it tasted good lmao like he couldnt see the flowers on the dash lol some cops crack me up they acted all tough like the were on a mission and was very dissappointed when they came up with nothing so they used the tag light as an excuse for pulling me over…was later told i could have taken them to court for harassment but i jus left it go
N WHO DO U THINK IS GOING TO PAY FOR A NEW CAR HE IS BECAUSE THE POLICE DEPARTMENT WON’T DO ANYTHING, THEY SHOULD BE THE ONES PAYING FOR IT