Posted on 02/17/2013 7:06:45 AM PST by JoeProBono
COLUMBUS, Ohio, - A Texas woman said police in Tennessee detained her because they thought the Ohio State University Buckeye logo on her car was a "marijuana sticker."
Bonnie Jonas-Boggioni, 65, of Plano, Texas, told The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch she and her 66-year-old husband were driving near Memphis Feb. 4 when police in a black sport utility vehicle pulled them over, and then a second black SUV pulled behind the first.
Jonas-Boggioni said she hadn't been speeding so she wondered why police were pulling her over.
"They were very serious," she said. "They had the body armor and the guns."
One of the officers asked her, "What are you doing with a marijuana sticker on your bumper?"
Jonas-Boggioni, a longtime Buckeyes fan who grew up in Columbus -- and is president of the Ohio State Alumni Club in the Dallas-Fort Worth area -- told the officer what the decal actually represents but she said he didn't seem to get it.
"He looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language," she said.
Jonas-Boggioni's husband, Guido, 66, got out of the car to show the police his sweatshirt -- an item from Ohio State's 2002 national-championship season, sporting a Buckeye leaf.
One of the officers said someone outside his jurisdiction had seen the logo on Jonas-Boggiono's car and thought it might mean the car was carrying pot, the Dispatch said.
"It's just amazing they would be that dumb," said.
A West Tennessee Drug Task Force spokeswoman said a decal is not sufficient cause to detain a motorist. The Tennessee Highway Patrol and the Shelby County sheriff's office in Memphis had no record of the stop.
In western Tennessee, it’s best to stay on the interstate, and try to get through the region as quickly as possible. Any out-of-state tags attract attention quickly.
Too bad the couple didn't record the conversation.
I had to laugh at the notion that a drug smuggler would place advertising signs on their vehicle to begin with!
I know that our prisons aren’t heavily populated by geniuses, but this made me laugh my ass off!
Stickers are now illegal?
This was a “good” mistake on the part of the police. I can see how it was made in good faith.
Had I been stopped for the same, I would have thanked them for their attention to details...even if wrong.
so what if they did have a marijuana sticker! first amendment... this is crazy...
If these senior citizens had had a TX Longhorn sticker, the Barney Fifes in TN would have suspected them of cattle rustling.
This is just another example illustrating that cops don’t have enough to do. Tax payers should demand a reduction of force in jurisdictions where these travesties occur.
Attention to detail?! Is that what you call it? I call it harassment!
You can get arrested shot for that.
We got rid of our local PD several years ago. They were decent enough guys but we were paying them to do next to nothing. Mostly they sat out on the main road and wrote speeding tickets.
Well in all fairness to the cops Ohio State fans should be arrested on principle alone....
Oh Cannabis, we get high on thee
With glowing cheeks ye see us rise
The true north stoned are we!
When I was in high school a friend and I put NORML bumper stickers on two of the local squads. It took several days for them to notice.
So the 4th Amendment means nothing. You sir have met no liberty you would not give up in order to secure your own safety. That is the very definition of cowardice.
Intrusions by gooberment employees should be rare, not routine. Liberty and risk are flip sides of the same coin. If you wish to posses liberty, you have to accept risk. Giving the gooberment enough power to attenuate every (really just transfer) gives the gooberment the power to destroy.
Best I can figure is you want to live in a risk free, highly predictable environment. That world does not exist. Your desire for a zero risk world is a product of fear. Free men must accept risk and uncertainty. You apparently want to live in a womb.
LOL that’s funny.
If this had been east Tennessee I’d suspect Ms. jonas-Boggioni and Guido of having inflicted themselves upon the populace to the point of provoking a little response in kind, what with the word “dumb” readily tumbling off her tongue so trippingly and all.
West TN in the vicinity of Memphis has turned into East St. Louis, though, so I’d say they got SWATted. Wrong color, nice vehicle, truly “dumb” would-be informant looking for a pretext to hassle, and then there’s civil asset forfeiture as a motive.
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