This is nothing new.
The local police used to set up a safety check between my house and the high school when I was a teenager, and every time I went through they found something else wrong with my VW Bug.
Our local police used to set up “curfew checks” downtown on Friday and Saturday nights. Carded everyone that came through the check point. City curfew was midnight for 18 and under. Curfew no longer exists because of numerous complaints that the police department were getting, including mine.
I was twenty and didn’t own a car, biked to work, and I worked graveyard shifts so being up all night on my days off was just because I didn’t wanna mess up my sleep schedule.
One Friday night an officer stopped my bike at the roadblock...er I mean checkpoint. No I don’t mean waved me down, he jumped in the way and stood right in front of me.
Asked for my driver’s license, which I didn’t have because I didn’t actually own a car. He gave me grief over that. Asked if I had ID. I said nope, don’t need it. They asked me my name and age, didn’t believe me and took me to the curfew violation station where they called parents. I didn’t live at my parents house, I had my own place. Cops wouldn’t let me go until they contacted my parents, or the sun came up.
So at 3:00am the police called my parents. Cop got chewed out for a while, appologized to the phone, walked over, gave me my stuff back and let me go.
At the time I didn’t know it, but now I do because of my experience. Roadblocks...er checkpoints...are illegal search and seizure. Period. There is no need for them at all except to find stuff to arrest and charge people with that wouldn’t have been found through normal means.