Stopped by Police and profiled, but why ??

....firstly if i posted in the wrong area i apologise in advance.....

i am an 18 year old white male from ellesmere port in north west england.

I was driving with two friends in my car when i was flashed by a police car. I pulled over and the officer called me into the back of his car and explained i had been stopped for having a brake light out.

whilst in the car, he took all my details i.e. adress, driving licence etc but also recorded what i was wearing, my height, where i was driving to, how long i was planning to be there and when i planned on returning.

On giving this information he said it was 'standard' to have this information taken, at the time i was a little nervous as this is the first time i have been involved with police, and so did not question why i had all my details taken.

My concern is that for simply having a brake light out, and i have discussed this with other people who have experienced similar, there is no reason to record my details and process them for the police database, or even to call me into the car

since the incident, i have contacted the police as to why i am being placed on the database and to find out whether i can refuse, the officer on the phone was not helpful and reiterated it was 'standard procedure' but has left a note for the officer who stopped me to contact me

what are other members thoughts on this, perhaps im over reacting, but to have all my details to be taken and to be placed on the database for comitting no crime seems strange

thanks in advance,

clw99

Do a google search on your legal rights in the UK. That should provide you information enough to know if it is standard procedure or not and what you can or can't do in that same situation.

It is a little inconvenient but since you did nothing wrong then I wouldn't worry. If they profile enough people then they will surely capture data on a criminal and that intel can be useful in apprehending them in the future.

Although I am not familiar with law enforcement policies and procedures in the U.K. there are similar occurrences here in the U.S.

What you experienced was (or may be) actually a defense for departments that were previously accused of racial profiling. Officers are instructed to record relevant data about stopped suspects so that a data-base may be kept. That data is then used to ensure that officers are not targeting any specific group out of proportion to their demographic representation in the general populace.

This is actually the result of do-gooders that made claims of police stopping too many persons of a specific group. So, in order to prove their impartiality, the officers must record such data. Unfortunately, it also results in a sort of reverse discrimination in which officers are forced to subject a certain number of the majority race/class/nationality to random stops in order to buffer their numbers and thus prove their multi-cultural tolerance.

When they do that they are cruising for details to allow them to search the car, since you are 18 with 2 similar friends he was prob hoping to make an underage drinking bust thinking there was booze in the car.

Simple answer in such cases:

ask "Am I being arrested? No? May I leave?"
And... remeber, anything you say can and WILL be used against you. Refuse to answer him, he will get mad and stomp and threaten to call a supervisor etc. Stand firm.. he will send you on. Course, he might follow you for the next week or so looking for slipups

reply to post by clw99


Fix your taillight and they won't pull you over? Just a thought?

Unless 18 year olds in the UK are different from those here, people your age are the most likely to be drunk on drugs or up to no good. It's not your fault, just the truth. I think Cops are influenced by that unless they are blind, deaf and dumb.

Young hormone driven people have always been the source of the most trouble on the highway and cause the most wrecks and deaths by far. Not your fault but factual.

Perhaps you got nervous and drove a little off? Maybe you were out at an unusual hour late at night when the drunks are on the road?

Be polite to the Cops and they won't harm you. Its the jerks who give them trouble who get the bad treatment and they usually deserve it. They always lie afterward about it and pretend the Cop had no reason to pull them over

reply to post by clw99


Spent 6 yrs in federal law enforcement... so maybe I can help:

Profiling isn't what you think... profiling is when you look at someone, such as an ethnic group, and use stereotypes to gauge a how you will respond... (example... Extra searches in airports for people of Arab descent) This is highly illegal...

what you experienced is standard practice in Law Enforcement, and is called a "Field Interview". Typically, this information is kept by the officer that conducted the interview for a predetermined length of time, and then disposed of...

Suppose he pulled you over in that neighborhood, and the next morning a body was found...

The officer uses the field interview notes to jog his memory about the brief encounter he had with you... These notes are typically property of the enforcement officer, unless it needs to be admitted in court...

Some departments also require this information to be entered into their police "blotter", which is an ongoing report continuously updated by a dispatcher of every single event that happened during that tour of duty.

I wouldn't worry man... I shredded my field notes every year or so..

The only notes I kept was in regards to blood born pathogens. I do have a record of everyone who's blood I was exposed to while in service (in the off chance that I contract something later on... some Blood path has a very long incubation period...)

no worries man, standard practice...



Blood path is serious buisness




[edit on 1-12-2008 by nj2day]

Here in the U.S I was pulled over for driving a car that had no front plate.
In my state we do not run or have front plates for some cars.
I was asked the same thing where I was going ,who I was seeing things of this sort.
I did not tell him. I gave him my drivers lic and when he told me he would have to ticket me ,I had him call his supervisor and check before he did that. As I was legal . He came back and gave me my Lic and said sorry you can go now. We do not have to tell them our live story and or where or what we are doing.

Now in the U.k it may not be the same as here. As I have seen where you are getting looked at at just about every level.

thanks for the advice and responses from everyone

have changed the light since, and understand young drivers are supposedly more dangerous but the fact i had not committed a crime, was not speeding and simply had a fault that i had no knowledge of makes me wonder why i was fully processed. Surely a warning about the light would have been sufficient, as others i know (including my family) have been only warned in similar past incidents.

thanks again anyway