Kentucky Man Convicted for Harassment for Photographing Cops in "Best Town on Earth"

Wow, my childhood home and current place of residence is on Reddit! I never thought that would happen. I'm also not surprised that it happened for a reason such as this. We have an overstaffed and bored police department. We even have a decommissioned military APC and Swat Team! Got to make sure those low-level drug offenders and debtors prison inmates don't get out of line because after all, we live in an apocalyptic wasteland, like Detroit, right? I can't even recount the number of times I was pulled over and illegally searched on fishing expeditions as a teenager. As I got older and realized that an improperly illuminated license plate is a simple moving violation and in no way constitutes a search of my vehicle I started to fight back in my own way. The last time that happened, about a year or so ago, (I'm 33 by the way) I flat out turned the officer down and asked him to clarify that in fact, he was stopping me for a moving violation. He said yes, that was correct and asked again to search my vehicle and I refused. He ended up making me submit to a field sobriety test, which I passed. I don't drink and drive. He also threatened to get the police dog to search outside of my vehicle all the while mentioning that if said dog hit on something it would be too late for me so if I had something to give him or tell I needed to it now. I said, no I don't and that it was fine for him to get the dog. I didn't mind. He hemmed and hawed for an another hour or so before he finally let me go and he made sure to, "thank me for exercising my constitutional rights". He literally said that as he told me to have a good night. He thanked me for exercising my constitutional rights, let that sink in. Does that mean that if I didn't flex them I didn't deserve them? Use 'em or lose 'em' must of been his internal mantra, I guess. I'm not trying to bad mouth cops or anything. The five or so years I lived in Lexington, Kentucky, I had nothing but benign and friendly interactions with law enforcement. I honestly think most problems with police departments come from their own internal culture. The leaders set the tone and level of training and that in turn directly affects the communities opinion of them. If law enforcement feels set upon these days, I would think they need to look inward instead of looking outward and find ways which they can repair their relationships. We also need to applaud them when and if they do that. If someone is making an effort to change we need to give them praise and the breadth to make the changes that we all need.

/r/AmIFreeToGo Thread Link - photographyisnotacrime.com