Are the cops “license plate profiling” in the state of Idaho? Unfortunately, all signs point to “yes”!
According to a 25-page complaint, back in January, Darien Roseen was traveling along a stretch of I-84 while driving in between his two homes in Colorado and Washington state, and had just crossed the Idaho-Oregon Border, when Idaho State Trooper Justin Klitch decided to pull Roseen over for an apparent traffic violation.
“Immediately after Mr. Roseen passed his location, Trooper Klitch pulled out from the Interstate median, rapidly accelerating to catch up with Mr. Roseen’s vehicle,” the complaint reads.
The 70-year-old Roseen says he changed lanes and exited the interstate to pull over in a rest area. He said Trooper Klitch followed him, which Roseen says made him feel “uncomfortable,” though “he did not perceive that he had done anything wrong.”
Mr. Roseen claims that due to the trooper being there, high winds, precipitation and snow-covered ground, caused him to bump the curb when he parked his vehicle.
That alleged accidental action persuaded Klitch to turn on his overhead lights, engulfing Roseen’s car with illumination.
The officer didn’t initially offer an explanation as to why he “pursued and initiated” contact with Mr. Roseen, but afterward proclaimed he made the stop based on Roseen’s failure to signal while exiting the interstate and because he bumped into the curb.
Mr. Roseen attempted to tell the trooper that he pulled into the rest area to use the men’s room, but Klitch wasn’t buying it.
“Trooper Klitch rejected Mr. Roseen’s reason for pulling into the rest area – that he had to use the bathroom,” so reads the complaint.
“Trooper Klitch stated, ‘You didn’t have to go to the bathroom before you saw me. … I’m telling you, you pulled in here to avoid me. That’s exactly what you did,’” the complaint states.
Klitch proceeded to badger Roseen by asking him why his eyes “appeared glassy” and blaming him of “having something in his vehicle that he should not have.”
According to the complaint, after Klitch asked for Roseen’s drivers license (but didn’t run it until later), and identified his possession of valid prescription medications, “Trooper Klitch asked him, ‘When is the last time you used any marijuana?’ thereby assuming that Mr. Roseen had, in fact, used marijuana and inferring that he had used it recently.”
The complaint says that Klitch repeatedly asked to search Roseen’s vehicle while continuing to question him about what he was “hiding.”
Roseen refused to give him permission to search, which caused Klitch to typify his behavior as “consistent with a person who was hiding something illegal.”
After idle threats to summons a drug-sniffing dog by Klitch (but never followed through), Roseen finally sanctioned a search of “parts” of the vehicle, if “it got him back on the road faster” and began unpacking its contents.
In the meantime, Klitch finally ran a background check on Roseen which turned up clean.
“Trooper Klitch claimed he could smell the odor of marijuana,” the complaint states. “Mr. Roseen stated that he could not smell the odor of marijuana that Trooper Klitch claimed to be coming from the trunk compartment.”
The alleged whiff of weed apparently gives cops the right to do an entire search on your vehicle in Idaho, and that’s just what happened.
Roseen was detained while a second officer joined Klitch in order to drive the vehicle to the station for an all out search-a-thon.
After a multi-cop mega-search was conducted with nothing to show for it, Roseen was issued a citation for “inattentive/careless” driving.
Enter lawsuit!
Roseen’s federal lawsuit seeking punitive damages alleges that Klitch, the second officer Christensen, Payette County Sheriff’s Deputy Webster (first names unlisted), and the Idaho State Police violated his Fourth, Fifth and 14th Amendment Rights and claims the search of his car was unjustified.
Damn straight!
“At no point did Trooper Klitch’s line of questioning relate to Mr. Roseen’s alleged improper driving pattern,” the complaint states. “Instead, Trooper Klitch immediately accused Mr. Roseen of transporting something illegal.”
Roseen’s attorney, Mark Coonts, told Courthouse News that his client’s constitutional rights were given no regard.
Ya think?!? Storm trooper mentality, plain and simple! Shameful!
Man Searched for Marijuana Because of Colorado License Plate Sues Cops - The 420 Times
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