We think that me may just catch that criminal who is a little clever. Drives his dope from state to state dressed nicely, in a nice but not "blinged out" car, and even has a child seat in the back. Maybe even a kid.
Wouldn't be the first time.
As far as dogs hitting on a car, dogs don't necessarily claw at something they smell/hit on. Some are trained to sit next to the area. Even some druggie brushing against the door of you car, the guy who had pipe in his back pocket and moved your car on the repair lot a week ago, or even the money in your wallet that some druggie had before you got it in change from the mini-mart can cause the dog to hit on your car.
Then when the officer doesn't find anything you're free to go.
Recent SCOTUS ruling stated that an officer can extend the stop long enough (reasonable time) to have a dog run around the outside of a car looking for drugs.
Agree with it or not, that's the law.
In my state if I even smell fresh or burned dope I can detain aevery person in that car until I know what happened and who had/has the dope.
In every state in the nation, other than mine, an officer can see you driving and think you' re running drugs, see you speeding or have a tailight out, and pull you over for the traffic violation just to try and get reasonable suspicion of another crime.
In my state it is called a pretext stop and is forbidden. I can see 4 guys who I know from previous experience to be gang members, who carry guns regularily, and are known drug dealers, driving in an area that I know they don't live in, at 3 in the morning, and I can't pull them over for the speeding violation to see if they are up to something else.
I have to write the ticket and then find another reason to ask about why they are in the area.
This state puts a high price on civil rights and that's good. It just makes my job tougher.
I had a gal two guys in a car once. Female driver backed into a parking spot and backed into the wall. (that's a collision) Then I saw one of the males do a hand to hand drug transaction. Then when I and my partner contacted them, the first words out of their mouths was, "you're Officer "X," Do you know "Joe?" Well "Joe" had just the day before made threats to kill us and this is where he lived. We had never met these folks before. They didn't know us but for some reason it just popped out of their mouths about "Joe" and our names. We took them out of the car and frisked them. The female had crack in the front of her bra (female officer felt the lump under the front clasp). Car had a gun (illegally carried by a felon) in the front passenger door.
That's a collision, a drug transaction, and two other felonies.
The judge tossed the whole thing because we supposedly had no reason to stop them for the collision because the owner of hte property never made a complaint of property damage. How's that for stupid.
I can also accept that not all drug runners drive 15 year old Chevy wagons (or brand new,pimped-out Escalades) and that they don't always wear torn sweatshirts and have "meth mouth".
But I do wonder if it's SOP for any State/County or local police departments to check for drugs with sniffer dogs every time they pull someone over for a broken taillight,regardless of the circumstances.