We�ve all been there before.
You�re driving along and you see a pair of flashing blue lights in your rearview mirror. Whether or not you�ve done anything wrong, you get a sinking feeling in your stomach.
You�ve read enough news stories, seen enough headlines, and lived in the American police state long enough to be anxious about any encounter with a cop that takes place on the side of the road.
For better or worse, from the moment you�re pulled over, you�re at the mercy of law enforcement officers who have almost absolute discretion to decide who is a threat, what constitutes resistance, and how harshly they can deal with the citizens they were appointed to �serve and protect.�
This is what I call �blank check policing,� in which the police get to call all of the shots.
So if you�re nervous about traffic stops, you have every reason to be.
Trying to predict the outcome of any encounter with the police is a bit like playing Russian roulette: most of the time you will emerge relatively unscathed, although decidedly poorer and less secure about your rights, but there�s always the chance that an encounter will turn deadly.
For instance, it was just a year ago, in the early morning hours of Dec. 1, 2016, when Gregory Tucker, a young African-American man, was pulled over by Louisiana police for a broken taillight.
What should have been a routine traffic stop became yet another example of police brutality in America.
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