Speed, Drugs and Dangerous Weapons

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Things that teenagers should not be permitted to carry include really nasty looking knives. The one pictured is stamped "Pakistan" and "Stainless", but at least the stain-free promise may not pass inspection as rust is developing along the blade.

But that's not really the point. This knife was temporarily seized during a search of a teenager's car last month. Pulled over for speeding, a state trooper conducted what he called a weapons check of the subject's person, which revealed a pill bottle and pipe, purportedly giving rise for a full search of the subject's car.

This happened on a rural Iowa highway some 30 miles northeast of Des Moines. The trooper suggested to his subject that "everyone" he lets in his car has to be checked for weapons, "for my own safety".

The trooper commenced the initial pat-down as the subject was attempting to open the passenger-side door (conveniently off-camera), but the door was locked. This is when the fruits were discovered.

A person's Fourth Amendment protection from search and seizure is subject to a few exceptions, such as in the case of a stop and frisk situation, in which the officer must have reasonable suspicion that the subject is armed and dangerous.

In this case, it was stated as a matter of protocol or standard procedure to do a weapons pat whenever permitting a subject into his patrol car. If there had been a legal reason for the search, the trooper had several opportunities to say so, but consistently said, "I just always do this".

When the trooper found the pipe, he felt further justified to search the car and the contents of the trunk. All totaled, he found the pipe, a bag with apparent pot residue, an empty pill bottle (over the counter meds) and the knife you see above.

It gets a bit more interesting. I said earlier the seizure of the knife was tempoary. The trooper actually put the knife back in the subject's car and scratched it off the seized property report, saying, "I don't want to deal with that".

Does any part of this bother you? Why?

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