Why is it so hard for cops to understand what reasonable and articulable suspicion is? Too many cops think they can stop a person walking down a public side walk for no other reason than the cop thinks the person looks suspicious. Do most cops really not understand what RAS is? Or are said cops knowledgeable of what RAS is and are just don’t care and are hoping the person doesn’t know their rights? For people who take an oath to the constitution most cops don’t seem to really care about it or even know the 5 parts to the first amendment.
Now I understand this question may trigger most of you. But if you could please try and give an honest answer instead of just banning me that’d be greatly appreciated .
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Well, I guess in order to have a conversation about it, we first need to know what your understanding of reasonable and articulate suspicion is, and where your training or education of that definition is from.
Honest answer: the guys you see on YouTube pulling this shit is a very tiny minority of cops. Hundreds of thousands of cops in the US with millions of contacts every day. These assholes make the rest of us look bad. That being said, a lot of the time there actually is “RAS”. Terry stops are legal in some states (not mine) and if one can articulate a reason for the brief detention, then it’s a legal investigative detainment. The saying goes “10% of the population, 90% of the time”. We know a lot of the “usual suspects” and if I’m stopping someone, it’s 100% of the time because A- I know who they are, and B- I know what they did.
The vast majority of cops understand RAS far better than you and the general public.
One thing many citizens forget, cops have no obligation to tell you what RAS is on the side of the road. That’s what Court is for.
99% of people who say they know their rights and/or argue about RAS and PC, don’t know anything about the law. They saw something on the interwebs and think they are now smarter than those trained and experienced doing this every day.
RAS isn’t hard to understand but the videos where a cop detain someone for RAS usually aren’t interesting enough for YouTube. I’ve had thousands of interactions with people, none of which are on YouTube anywhere.