So… can the police stop you for doing nothing wrong? The short answer is “of course not”, but legally what we’re talking about is a reasonable articulable suspicion of wrong doing, several examples of which I pointed out, but there are innumerable situations and variables that could be quantified as articulable suspicion.
This is more commonly known as a “stop issue” and it happens more frequently than people realize. The truth is the police can stop you if they believe you have or are doing something wrong in accordance with the laws in your particular state, city, and county.
Police Officers are “law enforcement entities” and cannot stop you for doing nothing wrong. Period. It would be outside of their power to do so. However, this is not to say that you should immediately resist a police officer when they stop you and ask for identification when you felt you have done nothing wrong.
A lot of times people feel that they are being stopped for no reason, and while it may be true that it happens sometimes, it is important to remember that just because a police officer may be mistaken, does not mean it is the time to “assert it”. A police officer does not need tell you the reason for the stop, and if they do not tell you, that does not mean they do not have one, which means you could end up creating a problem when there does not need to be one, or make an existing problem worse.
As always, your best defense is to remain calm, and follow the police officers directives. If you feel that the officer is wrong, or that they have done something wrong, your case will be much stronger if you cooperated in full with the law enforcement involved.
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