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What do you do if a cop approaches you and starts questioning you while you're sitting in your car in a public parking lot? (lemmy.world)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Unfortunately, I drive a ghetto minivan which causes the police to profile me and has caused people in small towns to call the police on me if I am in a public park or in their neighborhood. I even had someone call the police on me at campground that I had pre-paid for and the police were not sympathetic at all to my right to just exist.

I am aware of stop and identify laws and know that a cop needs reasonable suspicion to demand to see your ID. However, can't the cop just make up some lies about reasonable suspicion?

If a cop approaches me can I immediately start with: "Officer, do you have reasonable suspicion that a crime has occurred, is in the process of occurring, or is about to occur?" It seems like that will immediately escalate things even if technically the law is on my side.

I just want a damn right to exist law and to not be a target for an overactive imagination by the police which treats me like a criminal until they can check me for warrants.

Honestly, I want to tell them to fuck off right away but I also don't have money for a lawyer.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

So...

You did go to a campsite where families were in tents and you just sat inside your sketchy minivan and don't understand why the cops were called?

It might be just one example, but it was your pick. You saw nothing wrong with you behavior or understood why it was suspicious...

So there's a good chance lots of the time you don't see a reason, there's a very good reason it's happening.

Go lurk on r/vandwelling on Reddit, there's a shit ton of old posts going over common sense stuff that you would greatly benefit from. And I sincerely mean that as good advice, by your own admission you want help.

But there's not a lot of people on Lemmy, and this is pretty important.

So go reathe posts of people who live this life and have been doing it for years.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

I am upset about the profiling. Being poor does not automatically make you a criminal. Like when they profile people of color or Middle Easterns at airports. There's plenty of rich dudes driving $100,000 cars who are committing crimes in society. I know there's nothing I can do...just venting. Also, I had out of state license plates. As long as the locals were using their imaginations they could have just imagined that I was driving cross country (which was actually the case). So, because I am poor and have an ugly van I have no rights to use a campground that I paid for, right?