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Breathing is probable cause for them.

it absolutely is for drug offenses, once you become known for drugs, its basically open season on you-- since cops will forever see you as fair game in their minds. doesnt matter where you are or what you're doing, if they see you anywhere at any time for any reason, its time to play the game of getting fucked with by cops. cops have extremely wide discretion for searches and legally there's nothing you can do to prevent them if they want to do one-- doesn't matter how morally or technically legally correct you actually are-- unless they actually commit a crime themselves during said search and you can somehow prove it later-- the game wont stop until they decide to stop it. even not stopping completely at a stop sign for a full 4-5 seconds can become 'rolling through a stop sign-- time for a traffic stop' or the reverse 'sitting too long at a stop sign-- time for a traffic stop, guy must be impaired.. hurr', is enough, if you're on their drug offender radar.

my brother had a similar happen to him in his very early 20s, his best friend at the time was a dumb kid who had been picked up multiple times by local cops for varying degrees of drug possession. (weed, pills, etc) so his 'friend' was well-known already. so they'd pull his friends car over at random-- they knew it by sight-- to see what he had on him-- because they always seemed to find something. so one night they pulled him over again with my brother in the passenger seat and lo and behold-- weed, pills, weapons (knives/brass knuckles), and drug paraphenalia were in the car. so my brother and his friend both got arrested and jailed for drug & weapon possession and the car got towed-- and I had to go get my brothers stupid ass out of jail in the middle of the night. my brothers crime IMO, was associating with a known retard, who was never smart enough to stop drawing police attention to himself-- and the retard friend eventually got himself ~5+ years after multiple convictions in the years after. my brother ended up having to do an absurd amount of community service to get his charges dropped (since it was his first time having offenses).

my brother got pulled over a few more times by himself for a number of years after it happened. they never found anything and eventually stopped pulling him over since he stopped associating with the other guy at one point.

no one likes being fucked with by cops, but don't do the things that draw their attention or cause you to interact with them either-- it's never worth it. (theres a reason this is repeated in every thread on cops-- because its true) all it will do is create a cycle of getting fucked with by them until they finally get you on something-- or they eventually give up after a half dozen or dozen more times of not getting you on anything-- while hazing you with their full gamut of bullshit each time anyway. (I've had the displeasure-- unrelated to crime-- of interacting with a lot of cops, corrections officers, and other related badgies-- even MPs-- they all have the same shitty mindset, I've never seen any exceptions to how they think and operate-- hint: most cops are complete chodes and if you come at them like a complete chode as well, they will rapidly out chode you to flaunt their ultimate chode superiority-- because no one is more of huge chodes than they are, and they'll make sure you know it)

im going to lean in a different direction than the other posters here-- since IMO some of these other posters would provoke more confrontation with cops during a real interaction based on their replies-- even if they're morally or even legally right in their jurisdiction on some levels. my singular goal when interacting with cops, if i have to at all, is to not interact with them further--- not to be 'right' or to 'win' during my interaction-- no matter how justified I may be to do that-- unless something truly egregious occurs, like getting assaulted or some other actual real bullshit, more than just my sensitive fee fees and being butthurt about interacting with them.

but suing them is very unlikely to go anywhere-- except being time consuming and expensive for you, since judges are likely to side with the cops unless you have actual video of them doing actual irrefutable malfeasance more than a he said/she said thing-- and see your lawsuit as more of a nuisance/parental hysteria on your part, especially for a simple traffic stop on a known offender (in their minds).

if you want your son to drop off their immediate radar, have him drive a different car with his name not tied to the plates for a while and make sure he keeps his nose clean-- no stupid things whatsoever-- otherwise there will be two vehicles they pull over for quite a while. they'll eventually forget about him after not seeing him for awhile and life can go back to normal.

Yes.

You're absolutely correct and they tend to rely upon the public not being aware of, nor knowing how to assert, their rights.

You might be surprised how often they'll surrender their qualified immunity and render themselves and their organization open to litigation even when the suspect explicitly advises them that they're running afoul of the law.

Heads-up, you probably already know this and you can submit a FOIA request for the bodycam footage.