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ok so a few days ago me and some friends decided to go camping up in arkansas. me and my buddy stafford took my brother's SUV, and four of our friends rode in my pal noah's new car.
3 nights before we left, my pal noah got a new car. it's a cadillac STS, bright blue with glittery pain, rims, a trunk with a neon sign that says "ballin" on it. (my friend noah is white, btw). needless to say, it's a cop magnet, and the night before we left noah got ambushed - someone called in his car in a parking lot as 'suspicious' and he got ambushed, at gun point, by 4 cops who found only an empty beer can, so they charged him with having an open container and let him go. it's lucky for him - the cops really did violate his rights, they were thinking it was some banger with coke but it was just an 18 year old kid with a beer. but he's lucky because he's on probation so a wrong move and he's gone.
that didn't stop noah from loading up like 6 cases of beer. we put 50 beers on ice in noah's car and tossed the cases in my car, under some blankets and food and shit. (none of us are 21 and i like to ride as safe as possible)
we make it to the forest park, and we're looking for a campsite. i'm following noah who pulls up to a police officer (park ranger, whatever) and asks him if there are any more campsites down the road we were going, there weren't, so we turned around and park at a spot.
let me explain something - me and my friend stafford are relatively normal citizens of society - neither of us have records, we don't fuck with the law, we have good GPA's, etc etc etc.
the guys we were with... another story. In the other car was a group of pretty sketch guys. Noah, the driver, is on probation for a reason - most of them alcohol-related. Riding shotgun was Devoncie, this black kid who was pretty white (he had braces and an iphone, ffs), he sells the kindest buds. In the back there's Dylan, who's a tall guy who can find acid like it's his job, and next to him is Josh - an Irishman mechanic who's probably the best off, works hard and is trying to get back into college - but he loves to have fun and doesn't mind taking alot of risks.
They're not criminals, they just like to have fun, and for the most part we manage to be safe enough.
On this particular day, though, we ran afoul of Johnny Law. It's not hard to guess why - the cops must have seen six kids, one (Noah of course) wearing an "I <3 Beer" hat, and put two and two together. I'm guessing they doubled back to find us after we stopped to ask them about the area.
So yeah, we're unpacking shit at the campground and Noah comes down with the officer and says "hey, these guys want to talk to us for a minute". We all look around and we know exactly what's going down.
From what Noah says, they came right after we got out - everyone but Noah had grabbed a bag or two and brought it to the campsite, so most of our shit was still in the cars - and both cars had their trunks and a few doors open.
We walk over to Noah's car, and the cops start. They ask for our ID's, ask our ages, etc etc. The cops were actually very cool and reasonable... I mean, it's summer, at a camp, of course this guy must deal with underage posession alot.
Right here is where I do the math: I have beer in my car, alot of it, that hasn't been found. And there's weed - Devoncie had alot of really, really kind bud. Stafford, the guy who rode with me, had alot of schwag. I figured the other guys probably had weed on them as well.
The cop begins explaining the situation. He says he found beer in Noah's trunk, and it's illegal to posses alcohol underage. The other cop then starts poking around my SUV, asks who it belongs to, so I go over there and talk to him. He asks me if I have any alcohol, I say "no". He asks me if I'm sure, and so I put on the nervous front (though to be honest i didn't have to try to hard at this point) and say "well... I'm pretty sure...", and I start tossing things around in my trunk, lifting things up, etc. I'm doing this because I know exactly where the beer was, and so I'm able to show the cop enough so that he's satisfied.
(For the record, if you are familiar with SUV's: my brother drives a Mazda Tribute (the rebadged Ford Escape), and to pack for the camping trip, we folded down the rear row of seats so everything from the driver's seat back was floor for equipment. Right behind the passenger seat was the beer, under a few pillows, blankets and stuff. Basically - the only way the cop could have seen the beer was if he had opened the passenger-side rear door... which was the only door that wasn't opened.
So the cop shines his flashlight around and is satisfied, but then he pulls a new trick. He gets a serious look on his face (up until this point they were being good ol' boys, shooting the shit with us and being really cool about the alcohol) and says, "so where's the pot?". I immediately respond that I do not have any on me. He reminds me that he can search me and if he finds anything, I'm a goner, so I tell him "hey, if you suspect it, feel free to search me". I said that because the pot question was out of left field - there was no way he had any reasonable suspicion unless the fact that teenagers often pair alcohol with marijuana is considered "reasonable suspicion".
Up until this point, I really am pretty nervous - I had just lied to a fuckin' cop, one of my friends had a record (and was not even supposed to be in Arkansas, it's a violation of his parole to leave the state), and the cop who said "you know, if I find out you're lying..." is now wandering around my car, dangerously close to opening the one door that would probably have sent me to jail.
But then the cop looks me right in the eyes and says, "Look, your friends said the weed was in this car." At this point I'm fucking incredulous - did this fucker just say that? I knew it was bullshit for a few reasons - one was that my friends were all experienced with cops, and the first rule of anyone who's been through that is "no snitchin". Second, at this point it's been like ten minutes, and the cops had been talking to all of us at once until the cop took me over to my SUV to look through it, so I know he's had no time to actually even talk with the others.
This time I look him back right in the eyes and say "No. I don't have any marijuana on me, or in my car." He asks me if I'm sure, and this time I answer a definite yes... and that's that. He and I walk back over to the rest of the gang. They ask Noah if they can search his car (until now they had only been in his trunk), and what happened next was one of the most beautiful things to witness - the subtle exchange of glances between Josh, Noah, Devoncie and Dylan. It was a split-second and then you would have missed it, and then Noah says "yeah, go ahead." They rake through the seats, glovebox, door compartments and they don't find anything.
(For the record: besides the tents, the only other thing we had brought down to the campsite when we first arrived was Devoncie's backpack which had his weed. Josh had his weed in his pocket, and Stafford had put his weed under my seat in an innocent-enough looking pencil pouch).
After they satisfy themselves, they get us all together and make us pour out the icechest of beer. We do our best to act bummed, Noah keeps offering the cops a beer or two. After we pour out all fifty beers, the cops ask us who the beer belonged to. None of us say anything, so they give us a choice: all six of us can get ticketed, or just one person if they take the hit.
Once again I'm doing the math. Noah's got a record and shouldn't even be with us. Josh has a record, but it's history cause he's more or less straightened out. Devoncie was the youngest and it wouldn't be nice to start off his early adulthood with a posession charge. Dylan's record was clean as well, but he's got enough to deal with, personal things. Stafford's record was pretty clean, a few speeding tickets, but his parents would definitely kill him.
So I volunteered to take the charge. I don't have a single blemish on my record - not even a speeding ticket.
This is basically where I'm at now. The cop was cool and didn't take/suspend my license. He said if I called in and explained that it was my first offense, all I would have to do is pay the ticket (my friends said they'd cover it for me, awesome) and it would go away after 6 months.
I know I should just stick with that, but I'd like to get out of it altogether if I could. Another friend of mine was recently in a similar situation - him and a buddy got caught with weed, but since he was the older guy, he was charged, even though he didnt actually have weed on him. He got off of his charge by making that argument.
Ironically, I have little to no experience at actually dealing with the government legal system. Should I try to fight it, or should I pay up and shut up? Do I even have a case to make? How does the court hearing go down - do the cops come to testify? If I do make my case, would they then try to charge my friends? I've been told to just pay the thing and wait 6 months, but I'd like to clear it if I can with minimum effort. But if I go this route - how will this affect, say, job-seeking?
Help appreciated.
3 nights before we left, my pal noah got a new car. it's a cadillac STS, bright blue with glittery pain, rims, a trunk with a neon sign that says "ballin" on it. (my friend noah is white, btw). needless to say, it's a cop magnet, and the night before we left noah got ambushed - someone called in his car in a parking lot as 'suspicious' and he got ambushed, at gun point, by 4 cops who found only an empty beer can, so they charged him with having an open container and let him go. it's lucky for him - the cops really did violate his rights, they were thinking it was some banger with coke but it was just an 18 year old kid with a beer. but he's lucky because he's on probation so a wrong move and he's gone.
that didn't stop noah from loading up like 6 cases of beer. we put 50 beers on ice in noah's car and tossed the cases in my car, under some blankets and food and shit. (none of us are 21 and i like to ride as safe as possible)
we make it to the forest park, and we're looking for a campsite. i'm following noah who pulls up to a police officer (park ranger, whatever) and asks him if there are any more campsites down the road we were going, there weren't, so we turned around and park at a spot.
let me explain something - me and my friend stafford are relatively normal citizens of society - neither of us have records, we don't fuck with the law, we have good GPA's, etc etc etc.
the guys we were with... another story. In the other car was a group of pretty sketch guys. Noah, the driver, is on probation for a reason - most of them alcohol-related. Riding shotgun was Devoncie, this black kid who was pretty white (he had braces and an iphone, ffs), he sells the kindest buds. In the back there's Dylan, who's a tall guy who can find acid like it's his job, and next to him is Josh - an Irishman mechanic who's probably the best off, works hard and is trying to get back into college - but he loves to have fun and doesn't mind taking alot of risks.
They're not criminals, they just like to have fun, and for the most part we manage to be safe enough.
On this particular day, though, we ran afoul of Johnny Law. It's not hard to guess why - the cops must have seen six kids, one (Noah of course) wearing an "I <3 Beer" hat, and put two and two together. I'm guessing they doubled back to find us after we stopped to ask them about the area.
So yeah, we're unpacking shit at the campground and Noah comes down with the officer and says "hey, these guys want to talk to us for a minute". We all look around and we know exactly what's going down.
From what Noah says, they came right after we got out - everyone but Noah had grabbed a bag or two and brought it to the campsite, so most of our shit was still in the cars - and both cars had their trunks and a few doors open.
We walk over to Noah's car, and the cops start. They ask for our ID's, ask our ages, etc etc. The cops were actually very cool and reasonable... I mean, it's summer, at a camp, of course this guy must deal with underage posession alot.
Right here is where I do the math: I have beer in my car, alot of it, that hasn't been found. And there's weed - Devoncie had alot of really, really kind bud. Stafford, the guy who rode with me, had alot of schwag. I figured the other guys probably had weed on them as well.
The cop begins explaining the situation. He says he found beer in Noah's trunk, and it's illegal to posses alcohol underage. The other cop then starts poking around my SUV, asks who it belongs to, so I go over there and talk to him. He asks me if I have any alcohol, I say "no". He asks me if I'm sure, and so I put on the nervous front (though to be honest i didn't have to try to hard at this point) and say "well... I'm pretty sure...", and I start tossing things around in my trunk, lifting things up, etc. I'm doing this because I know exactly where the beer was, and so I'm able to show the cop enough so that he's satisfied.
(For the record, if you are familiar with SUV's: my brother drives a Mazda Tribute (the rebadged Ford Escape), and to pack for the camping trip, we folded down the rear row of seats so everything from the driver's seat back was floor for equipment. Right behind the passenger seat was the beer, under a few pillows, blankets and stuff. Basically - the only way the cop could have seen the beer was if he had opened the passenger-side rear door... which was the only door that wasn't opened.
So the cop shines his flashlight around and is satisfied, but then he pulls a new trick. He gets a serious look on his face (up until this point they were being good ol' boys, shooting the shit with us and being really cool about the alcohol) and says, "so where's the pot?". I immediately respond that I do not have any on me. He reminds me that he can search me and if he finds anything, I'm a goner, so I tell him "hey, if you suspect it, feel free to search me". I said that because the pot question was out of left field - there was no way he had any reasonable suspicion unless the fact that teenagers often pair alcohol with marijuana is considered "reasonable suspicion".
Up until this point, I really am pretty nervous - I had just lied to a fuckin' cop, one of my friends had a record (and was not even supposed to be in Arkansas, it's a violation of his parole to leave the state), and the cop who said "you know, if I find out you're lying..." is now wandering around my car, dangerously close to opening the one door that would probably have sent me to jail.
But then the cop looks me right in the eyes and says, "Look, your friends said the weed was in this car." At this point I'm fucking incredulous - did this fucker just say that? I knew it was bullshit for a few reasons - one was that my friends were all experienced with cops, and the first rule of anyone who's been through that is "no snitchin". Second, at this point it's been like ten minutes, and the cops had been talking to all of us at once until the cop took me over to my SUV to look through it, so I know he's had no time to actually even talk with the others.
This time I look him back right in the eyes and say "No. I don't have any marijuana on me, or in my car." He asks me if I'm sure, and this time I answer a definite yes... and that's that. He and I walk back over to the rest of the gang. They ask Noah if they can search his car (until now they had only been in his trunk), and what happened next was one of the most beautiful things to witness - the subtle exchange of glances between Josh, Noah, Devoncie and Dylan. It was a split-second and then you would have missed it, and then Noah says "yeah, go ahead." They rake through the seats, glovebox, door compartments and they don't find anything.
(For the record: besides the tents, the only other thing we had brought down to the campsite when we first arrived was Devoncie's backpack which had his weed. Josh had his weed in his pocket, and Stafford had put his weed under my seat in an innocent-enough looking pencil pouch).
After they satisfy themselves, they get us all together and make us pour out the icechest of beer. We do our best to act bummed, Noah keeps offering the cops a beer or two. After we pour out all fifty beers, the cops ask us who the beer belonged to. None of us say anything, so they give us a choice: all six of us can get ticketed, or just one person if they take the hit.
Once again I'm doing the math. Noah's got a record and shouldn't even be with us. Josh has a record, but it's history cause he's more or less straightened out. Devoncie was the youngest and it wouldn't be nice to start off his early adulthood with a posession charge. Dylan's record was clean as well, but he's got enough to deal with, personal things. Stafford's record was pretty clean, a few speeding tickets, but his parents would definitely kill him.
So I volunteered to take the charge. I don't have a single blemish on my record - not even a speeding ticket.
This is basically where I'm at now. The cop was cool and didn't take/suspend my license. He said if I called in and explained that it was my first offense, all I would have to do is pay the ticket (my friends said they'd cover it for me, awesome) and it would go away after 6 months.
I know I should just stick with that, but I'd like to get out of it altogether if I could. Another friend of mine was recently in a similar situation - him and a buddy got caught with weed, but since he was the older guy, he was charged, even though he didnt actually have weed on him. He got off of his charge by making that argument.
Ironically, I have little to no experience at actually dealing with the government legal system. Should I try to fight it, or should I pay up and shut up? Do I even have a case to make? How does the court hearing go down - do the cops come to testify? If I do make my case, would they then try to charge my friends? I've been told to just pay the thing and wait 6 months, but I'd like to clear it if I can with minimum effort. But if I go this route - how will this affect, say, job-seeking?
Help appreciated.
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