by Harlow Sinclair
The dominant narrative is that police make our communities safer than anything else could. The biggest lie the devil ever told, they say, was convincing the masses he didn’t exist. The greatest farce is the idea that the police are the only thing standing between you and chaos. We accept policing on our streets on the theory it keeps us safer than nothing. The reality is, police can and do make us less safe.
They can stop a vehicle at the side of a high-speed interstate simply for having expired tags. The risk of harm at the side of the highway is so great, and the traffic code reflects this in the higher fines for work zones and school zones, where people are at higher risk of being struck by vehicles at unsafe speeds. Yet a police officer has the authority to stop a vehicle on the side of the highway, make a person exit their vehicle, and stand there in the narrow band beside the 70-mile-per-hour missiles and stand on one foot. All this because the sticker had the wrong two digits on the license plate. The officer can use race, geography, strict traffic code compliance, gender, or whatever else they want to use to make the call on whether the sticker warrants further investigation. The power to stop anyone anywhere at any time is such a huge grant of authority to the police, and we are taught never to question it.
Yet it is virtually impossible to comply with traffic regulations perfectly. For example, in Illinois, the law requires that a driver signal their turn at least 100 feet beforehand. In many places, there are odd bits of roadway where the span is fewer than 50 feet between beginning of the “road” and the intersection where a turn may be taken. A particular gas station exit is less than 50 feet from the stoplight, so it is impossible to comply with the 100-foot rule and signal that far before the turn. But that’s plenty of probable cause for a stop, after which point the officer effectively has control of the vehicle if they want it. So, it’s no wonder some officers have been seen to watch that intersection.
Another thought experiment: consider pulling up to a four-way stop. You pull to a stop first, behind the white line. The vehicle to your left pulls up a beat after you do. Because you believe you are next, you begin to pull into the intersection. The other car does too, so you stop short. Now, you’ve stopped over the white line, violating 625 ILCS 5/11-904. Probable cause.
That is when the police even have to come up with probable cause for what they want to do. That’s not required for “dog sniff searches”. This is because, the Supreme Court has reasoned, the air around your vehicle is not a private area, so a dog sniffing around your vehicle is not an unreasonable intrusion. Imagine driving down the highway and complying with traffic laws perfectly. A police officer pulls up and passes by you, and you don’t take your eyes off the road for a moment. They’re not going to catch you slipping. You’re low on gas, though, so you pull off the exit to refuel. You go in the gas station for a fountain soda, and when you return, there’s an officer walking around your vehicle with a dog. Do you feel free to get in your vehicle and leave? If you tried, would you be charged with obstruction or worse? In what sense are you “free to leave”? When it is impossible to avoid a police officer who wants to find a reason to search you, how are any of us free?