Officers Have A Lot To Gain From Unconstitutional Traffic Stops, But Not A Lot To Lose

Mario Rosales was ticketed by Alexandria, Louisiana police for failing to signal. But Mario was certain that he had been signaling. He visited businesses around the intersection where he had been pulled over, asking if they had security footage showing the stop. One of them did have a camera pointed in the right direction, and it showed that Mario was right.

This became perfectly clear weeks later, when police released the dash and body cam footage from the stop. Mario’s bright red Mustang clearly had its left turn signal on. The rest of the footage demonstrated why officers had made up a reason to pull Mario and his girlfriend over: They were fishing for bigger crimes.

From the beginning, it was obvious that the stop wasn’t about a minor traffic infraction. Mario was asked to exit the car. Then he was frisked, made to empty his pockets and asked a number of questions about illegal drugs. Mario was read his Miranda rights, but by politely answering their questions about his residency, he ended up with additional citations for not registering his car fast enough after moving from New Mexico.

The video showed the two officers audibly expressing disappointment after the dispatch let them know that there were no warrants for Mario and so they had no reason to search his car, or let the dog sitting in the back seat of the squad car sniff around.

Instead, after Mario obtained the dash and body cam footage, all of his citations were dropped. Now, the Alexandria Police Department and the officers are the defendants in a civil rights lawsuit filed by Mario and the Institute for Justice.

It might not be everyday that officers are caught red-handed making a bogus traffic stop, but there’s little doubt that many traffic stops are conducted with the hope that they will lead to more serious charges or a payday for the police.

The problem is nationwide. In South Carolina, for example, law enforcement agencies across the state participate annually in “Operation Rolling Thunder.” In 2022, the Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office reported that it seized nearly $1 million by searching 144 vehicles. Many of the offenses that officers use to pull over drivers are minor or subjective. More than 350 cars were pulled over for improper lane change, following too closely or equipment violations.

In one instance, deputies pulled over a charter bus carrying students from Shaw University, a historically black college. Body cam footage from the stop shows the bus driver being pressured into letting deputies search all the passengers’ luggage without their consent. Deputies then rummage through bags checking out prescription medications and personal items. No illegal items were found and the driver was only given a warning for failure to say in the lane.

Pulling drivers over for minor violations and then searching for even more citations to hand out can be very profitable for law enforcement. This was the practice for several years in the tiny town of Brookside, Alabama. Stops for things like burned out license plate lights turned into wide-ranging investigations that routinely ended in cars towed and drivers arrested.

Michelle Moffat, like Mario, was supposedly pulled over for failure to signal. Because of a government database problem, the officer insisted that Michelle didn’t own her vehicle and didn’t have insurance. The officer wouldn’t accept her proof of ownership or insurance and towed the car, leaving her, her daughter, and her young grandson by the side of the road at night.

Stops like these were highly profitable for the town. Whether or not drivers contested their citations, they had to pay hundreds of dollars to the town to get their car out of impound. The money was used to increase the size of the police force tenfold and buy expensive toys. Police for a town of 1,200 residents with no serious crime problem had night vision, high-powered rifles, and even a “tank” leased from the Department of Defense.

Supreme Court precedent permits officers to tail drivers until they can find a violation, but it is clearly unconstitutional for officers to make up violations because they have a hunch that a driver is up to no good. Legal precedent also prohibits officers from extending traffic stops to ask about crimes unrelated to the offense they pulled someone over for, but there is very little risk and lots of potential reward for officers violating the constitution this way.

Mario didn’t end up in the back of a squad car and his citations were dropped, but he is suing to defend his rights and to protect others from future violations of their rights. The Fourth Amendment exists to protect Americans from fishing trip criminal investigations. If courts don’t protect these rights, dragnet traffic stops will only increase, and more drivers will find themselves stopped at the side of the road for no reason at all.