LETTER FROM
THE EDITOR
Elsewhere in the issue, Radley Balko puts the spotlight on a
routine traffic stop last December
in Collinsville, Illinois. On their
way back to Ohio after attending
a Star Trek convention, filmmaker
Terrance Huff and his friend Jon
Seaton were pulled over by a police officer, supposedly for an unsafe lane change. However, just as
they are about to drive away, the
officer asks whether the men are
transporting drugs, weapons or
cash. Before long, a police dog is
sni ffing for drugs. The cop rummages through the mens’ luggage.
Finding nothing, he sends them
on their way.
Balko uses the incident to put
the mechanics of routine traffic stops under the microscope:
the ways police interact with the
people they’ve stopped; the ways
drivers will consent to dubious
police demands in order to avoid
trouble; and new research showing that police dogs, so often used
in traffic stops, are not nearly as
effective as police claim. As Balko
puts it, Huff’s story—and the stories of countless traffic stops no
one will ever hear about—raise
“important questions about law
HUFFINGTON
10.21.12
enforcement and the criminal
justice system, including whether
improper financial incentives are
inducing police departments to
commit civil rights violations, the
drug war, profiling, and why it’s
so difficult to strip
problematic cops of
their badges.”
As Elia
After the encounputs it, the
ter, Huff made an
conditions
open records request
are far from
to obtain video of
her vision of
the traffic stop taken
the American
from the cop’s dashDream when
board camera—a
she was living
video that has since
in Mexico.”
gone viral. In May,
Huff filed a civil
rights lawsuit against the Illinois
town and the officer (who himself has a record including six
speeding tickets and a conviction
for selling fake designer sunglasses). It’s material worthy of
primetime TV—and indeed, earlier this month, the ABC drama
The Good Wife included a plotline directly inspired by
Huff’s case.
ARIANNA