Retired FBI Agent Shares Top 3 Trick Questions Cops Ask During Traffic Stops
My seven-year-old has already started. I’ll ask her a question, say, “Whatcha doin?” to which she’ll casually reply, “Nunya.” Oooo, buddy. If this is seven, what’s 16 going to sound like? Well, if she ever gets pulled over after she starts driving, that mindset, albeit a bit too spicy to use on her parents, might actually do some good. Retired FBI agent Steve Lazarus Brooks may agree. Here, he tells us how you should answer a police officer’s nosy inquiries.
Top 3 trick questions police officers ask during traffic stops, according to a former FBI agent
1. “Where ya headed today?” Or, “Where you coming from?”
“This one’s iffy…” Brooks muses. The police officer is likely hoping you’ll say you’ve just left a party or gathering of some kind. But stay on your toes: It’s “so he can develop enough reasonable suspicion to hook you up for a DUI.”
The safe bet is simply saying, “I’d rather not answer that.”
But if you’re leaving church or your shift as a volunteer at the children’s hospital and that may work in your favor, “That’s your call.”
2. “Do you know why I stopped you?”
“He knows why he stopped you,” Brooks claims. But, he says, the police officer is likely hoping you’ll provide more “bait” for his “fishing trip.”
Brooks advises that it doesn’t matter what you were doing. “I don’t care if you were doing 80 in a school zone on four bald tires with a dead hooker hanging out your trunk,” he explains (uh, okay…). “The answer here is a simple, ‘No.’”
3. Would you mind if I just take a quick look around inside your car?
“Same fishing trip,” the retired FBI agent warns. “But now he wants to see how stupid you are.”
But you’re not! So, the answer is, “I do not give you permission to search my person or my vehicle.”
Brooks says bottom line, be polite but firm with the police officer. In his mind, it’s important to never forget that this was an “adversarial situation” the moment those cruiser lights came on behind you.
While it seems a bit standoffish, a self-described lawyer wholeheartedly agreed with the retired FBI agent: “Attorney here. This post is spot-on.”
