That’s good. The article talks about how K9’s should be handled with the legalization of weed. Should they be retired if they still respond to weed, etc.
Of course K9’s aren’t trained to actually smell anything. They’re just trained to respond to an officers command, giving police the freedom to search any vehicle they please.
Of course K9’s aren’t trained to actually smell anything
Can we stop with the conspiracy theories please? This is just stupid.
It’s a fact that they have an extremely high false-positive rate. Whether that’s intentional or not doesn’t change the fact that it serves law enforcement’s interests.
I suppose that’s true, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t smell anything. Your conclusion may be correct, but your initial claim isn’t, and that’s something I’m seeing on lemmy more than I’d like to.
He didn’t say they don’t smell anything. He said they’re trained to respond to their handler. What he said is true. Even if it’s not what they’re intentionally training, it is a verifiable fact that most k9s respond more to their handlers body language than to any actual substance they’re smelling.
Of course K9’s aren’t trained to actually smell anything
He didn’t say they don’t smell anything
Anyways, I wasn’t able to find data on police K9 units. I found this which has some good data with references further down the page, but it’s pretty far from a field environment. Do you have a study (“verifiable fact”) that has this data?
they are not trained to smell
but that doesn’t mean they don’t smell anything
These are two different statements saying different things. Yes, police dogs often have noses that function. No, police dogs often do not require their noses in order to get the response the handler is wanting.
And I was specifically referring to US k9s, but here are polish dogs. Their efficacy in cars, which is what I was referring to although did not explicitly state, is only 57%. Im still looking at other sources to find a more reliable, hopefully first hand, study.
The question wasn’t about the efficacy of dogs but about the “only respond to handler” part and you didn’t provide a source for that.
Edit: another comment provided a study for that.
https://slrpnk.net/post/13508645/11129816 there have been studies
See my response to that comment
I’m a different poster lol
Ah yeah, sorry bout that. Replace “your” with “their” then
They’re actually remote-controlled, not real dogs.
There was a study done where police K9 units where told they’d be testing the accuracy of the dog’s ability to find drugs. In actuality, they were testing the handlers. Handlers were told drugs were hidden in a certain location, but there wasn’t actually drugs there. Despite that, all their dogs alerted several times to the location the handlers were told about.
I’ve looked at several of these studies today and they all prove without a doubt that handlers have an effect on their dogs’ behavior, but they don’t prove that the dogs don’t have the ability to detect what they say they can. That might become useless policy-wise if the police can nearly always cause the dog to alert, but science-wise it’s dishonest to say that the dogs can’t smell anything.
I don’t think the dogs’ ability to smell things is in question, but the ability of humans to reliably use that sense of smell and not inadvertently get the dogs to respond to an accidental or deliberate signal from their handler.
Ultimately, the dogs want to please their human, not sniff out drugs, and if police are looking for some pretext to search a car, then signaling with or without drugs will please the human.
Dogs should only be used once a warrant is issued to help speed up a search. At which point, if they aren’t good at it, they’ll eventually just stop using them. If they can be used to bypass warrants entirely, then that is their usefulness, not how good they are at finding drugs or not signaling when there isn’t anything to be found.
Knew a k9 cop. He freely admitted this is how it works.
No, you’re right. I do believe they’re trained to detect things, and thought about editing it, but I stuck with the poor wording.
I appreciate this, apologies for sounding a bit hostile
They are trained for it. That doesn’t mean they can do it well.
Hey you’ve just described my work, too!
Shit I thought that became the case when Illinois passed its recreational law.
Will police have to retire police dogs if they still react to weed?
Yes. Police dogs “alerting” on something that isn’t illegal, in a way that is indistinguishable from “alerting” on something that is illegal, are no longer qualified to be drug sniffers.
That makes it no different than it already is, most of those dogs will “alert” whenever they’re signaled regardless whether they smell anything. Information online suggests anywhere between a 26-44% positive ID rate though numbers on that seem a bit sketchy from different sources.
Hence the quotes around “alert.” I chose to keep my previous comment about accurate dog sniffs in order to address the question of “police dogs that react to weed even though the smell of weed is not illegal.” Inaccurate sniffs are a completely valid, but separate concern.
Fair enough, point taken.
Drugs won the war!
And just like most wars, it was bullshit that it was fought in the first place and the largest source of casualties was innocents.
They needed some excuse to give hippies felonies so they couldn’t vote
Don’t forget black and brown people. White conservatives hate it when anyone but them participate in democracy
Good, because that’s absolute bullshit. Especially when it’s legal in Illinois.
That said, don’t drive while high please.
This is the police … if you get pulled over by a jerk of an officer, they’ll find a different excuse to search your vehicle … or at the very least hold you up, get you out of your car and generally give you a hard time.
Do your lights work? How’s your tire treadwear? Is your documentation up to date? You were driving about five over the limit. This is a ride check.
And one of the worst questions I absolutely hate being asked by a cop … “Where are you going?”
Remember, they are asking if they can search your vehicle. You are allowed to say no. Then they must justify an arrest
It’s an imbalance of power.
If a guy with a gun and a license to kill … which is basically what a police officer is … if they start asking questions, I’m answering politely.
I’m not going to argue with them or disagree with them … even if I say ‘no’ I’m still at risk based on the personality of the cop.
I’m also a big brown skinned long haired indigenous person so whenever I get stopped by a cop … I’m doing what I’m told or I risk getting beaten, arrested or even shot.
This is also the reason why I placed four different cameras with audio around my vehicle.
Okay, that is absolutely fair, and I do not blame you one bit for doing what you have to do to stay safe.
Same brother. Fellow brown dude… I’ve been pulled over because my ‘car sounded like it was being driven drunk.’ Yeah, let that set in… I didn’t argue at all - I was well within my rights, but I didn’t know if he gave a shit about my rights or not and his rationale for pulling me over suggested not to press my luck.
Ah, common mistake. You accidently left your confederate flag up, so they just assumed you were driving drunk.
“Am I being detained?”
“I do not consent to any search of my person or property.”
“I am exercising my right to remain silent.”
“I will not answer any further questions without an attorney present.”
These should all be burned into everyone’s brain (even if some shitheads have made “Am I being detained?” into a joke, it is still valid).
With regard to refusing to answer questions and searches:
- Your right to remain silent must be actively expressed in order to exercise it. Simply being silent without active verbal exercise of that right can be interpreted as “confrontational behavior.”
- Depending on the circumstances, there are some questions that you are obliged to answer. If you are driving a car, you are required to produce your driver’s license. You may be required to identify yourself with name and birthdate, even if you are not driving a car.
- There are a couple of different kinds of search. One kind is a “pat down.” This is where the officer is allowed to feel over your clothes (not inside pockets) to check for weapons, and this generally does not require any probable cause or reasonable suspicion. Any other kind of search of person or property does require probable cause, or comes after an arrest. “I do not consent to any search.” If the officer is asking for your consent, they don’t have cause (yet).
- Be aware that you are only required to be Mirandized if the police are going to ask you questions about whatever situation they have you as a suspect or person of interest in. But you always have those rights, whether they have been read to you or not, and police may ask you questions which are “adjacent” to the situation without Mirandizing you - in the hopes that you simply offer incriminating information.
If the police want to talk to you, it’s Shut the Fuck Up Day.
Don’t forget, ridiculous as it is, you have to say “my attorney”, based on https://reason.com/2011/03/08/tennessee-cops-posed-as-a-defe/
You are.
And they are also allowed to then say they smell something and bring in a dog that responds to their commands to establish a “hit” to justify searching anyway.
If its not the smell of weed, it will just be a different smell that they claim. The issue is your rejection of their search is functionally meaningless.
Not consenting to a police search doesn’t stop the search, and that’s ok.
What it does is make the fruits of that search inadmissable, and may also enable you to sue them if the search was unreasonable or excessive, or the pretext violated your rights.
Even if you know you don’t have anything in your car, verbally and clearly say that you don’t consent to the search, and would like them to note that fact, but otherwise comply. Lots of people have been caught up by police planting evidence, and you don’t want to be one of them.
Ehhh no, that’s not true.
You can say no, but if they pull in some other reason (such as dogs) to give them a meaningful excuse, they now have probable cause for the search.
Anything is now 100% admissible, you can sue but its not going anywhere, and they can still get away with planting evidence because they came up with whatever probable cause necessary to perform the search anyway.
Edited to add: BTW, if your car gets all scrsthed up from the dogs, that’s just too bad.
Get a dash cam, front and rear ideally, which also grabs the interior. You do not need to notify police that they are on camera, while in uniform they are public personnel and are not subject to any expectation of privacy while carrying out their “duty”. But it may be good to mention you have a camera in there, and no, you will not turn it off.
Don’t mention your camera because they will helpfully turn it off for you or it will mysteriously get “lost” in evidence.
Let the motherfuckers find out at discovery. By then it’s too late for them.
That’s why I say two and saying no you will not turn it off.
A cop fiddling with a camera after being told about it, or turning it off while “mishandling” their own body cam… Yeah that’s a good reason to get things thrown out.
Added benefit of not making it to discovery by not having something planted in your car in the first place.
This might not be completely true, but I was told by a former cop that technically anything obscuring the driver’s view through the windshield is something they can use against you. Hanging air fresheners, bobble heads, a mounted dash cam… it’s just one of those things that isn’t usually enforced.
“Where are you going?”
Chaotic neutral: To a lecture on the 4th amendment.
Chaotic evil: Your mom’s house.
you are under no obligation to tell them where you’re going/have been.
Whenever I start disagreeing with an officer or telling them I don’t have to answer any questions … the response is usually that I have an attitude and that they don’t like my behavior.
It’s subtle intimidation because they know that if I stand up for myself long and hard enough … they’ll detain/ arrest or use force, ask questions after and justify their actions later.
It’s easier to walk a fine line between complying and trying not to upset a bully with a gun.
This is the way. In my experience it’s been better to act like their friend while still being mindful of what information you’re giving (strictly talking about traffic stops). But for sure if they seem to suspect you of a crime it becomes STFU Friday. It also helps to keep your hands on the wheel and be white.
They’ll just say they smell fentanyl and then pass out.
Cool. Now revoke QI!
They’ll just shift to “is that crack I smell?”
“I don’t know what crack smells like officer, but I’ll defer to your personal experience.”
gets face bashed in
“…almost worth it.”
Please don’t talk about my body
Are you smoking weed or am I having a stroke?
Yeah so useful for all the people who avoid going to Illinois for all of the obvious reasons. I was born in Illinois, and don’t even like to drive through there.
Removed by mod
If the wording is correct, this is a pointless win. Who’s going to prove whether they smell burnt cannabis or fresh cannabis? 99% of people with burnt cannabis smell have fresh cannabis on them too.
