And furthermore, are you aware of all the information that can be attached to a license plate such as warrants, wants for questioning, etc? Thanks to automated license plate readers, an officer can cruise an entire mall parking lot with the ALPR running every plate that it can read. Suppose that the ALPR returns a license plate alerting the officer that the registered owner has a warrant or a suspended driver's license. The officer, calls permitting, can sit on that car and wait to see who shows up and then stop and detain that person if they appear to fit the information/description on the warrant. Is that not an investigative interaction in your opinion? No reasonable suspicion necessary, just cruising through a mall parking lot.

Wow, I find that offensive and I've never had a traffic ticket.
Please tell me what places do that so I can vote with my dollars
to visit somewhere else.

By motel do you mean hourly rate places? Or do you distinguish between
a motel and hotel? The wording above has enquiring minds wanting to know.

Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Mesa AZ among others I'm sure.

The existence of a warrant for the owner of a car is probable cause. The officer cannot* stop people simply walking by or near.
Yes I am. In at least one instance this has been ruled illegal:
http://www.aclu-wa.org/news/high-cou...y-hotel-guests and I certainly hope there have other similar decisions.
Santa Cruz Ca., Richmond Va. for certain and I am sure this is a widespread practice.

* You're still missing the point. It's not what the police are currently doing, with or without local municipal support, it's whether such practices are Constitutional, legal and moral. Unfortunately each such instance has to be challenged individually (see above) despite the Supreme Court having declared suspicionless searches to be generally illegal. Chandler v. Miller (96-126), 520 U.S. 305 (1997) et al.

I am not anti-law and order but without checks and restraints the police will simply do whatever they feel justified in doing. I don't care if their motives are good or not some things are simply wrong and beyond the pale. Sometimes far beyond.

We use to (and they still do) roll through motel/hotel lots at night and run plates on our mobile terminals looking for stolen vehicles......

How so...? I encounter someone....I am going to run them.....


Both....because TSA whacker would be a suspect in my mind.....and I still have no clue who you are.....

I've seen Officers (for whatever reasons) not run folks at incidents.....then run them later to only find out they had warrants..... Opps....

My Former Sheriff would have given me days off.....

Not trying to jack you up but still trying to understand what it takes to run a person through NCIC.

Is Reasonable Suspicion or better required?

Does a TSA employee calling you create Reasonable Suspicion?

Example, TSA employee finds my $4,000 and calls police. Where is the suspicion that an illegal act has or is about to occur?

Or is all it takes is because you want to?

Is there any legal standard?

Boggie:

Here's when we ran NCIC Checks:

Any vehicle pulled over
Any vehicle license plate called out over the radio by an officer
Anyone arrested
Anytime an officer requested it during the course of a call.

It really isn't hard, just need a name and DOB, takes about 20 seconds for a response.

The printouts were duplicate, and the top copy was shredded after use, and the 2nd copy was held by the records department. I'm 99 44/100% sure that the FBI keeps record of who was run when, but it doesn't necessarily print when the dispatcher runs a person.

However, we couldn't run anyone just because. That would get you in trouble, especially if for some reason there was a hit.

Is Reasonable Suspicion required to run a NCIC?

If it is what is the standard for Reasonable Suspicion?

Well the vehicle checks are to check for a stolen vehicle. The cops would also cruise the local mall overnight and we ran any vehicles parked (the mall was notorious for stolen cars being dumped there)

Also, anyone arrested was run, but the reasoning for this is obvious.

My guess (again, I'm not LEO nor was I) is that there could be any reason to run someone that a LEO encountered, tho I know that not every person was run in the jurisdiction I worked in. (Now that the computers are in the cars, that may have changed.) I also know that the computers in the car, when they run a plate, run the registered owner through NCIC.

As some have stated the simple act of checking into a hotel is enough to get a person run through NCIC. I see no supportable evidence that a crime has or is about to occur just from going to a hotel for the night.

If I park my car at the mall to go shopping I see no valid reason for police to investigate that act unless they can point to some other factor.

I believe the use of NCIC for all manner of things is a case of giving an inch, taking a mile. Seems to me that police are abusing the system for investigation things that do not meet RS or PC standards.

Still haven't heard any one of our law enforcement types stating what constitutes "reasonable suspicion". Is it really that hard to articulate something that is dealt with every day in the life of a LEO?

Oh I hear you there - but all they ran was a stolen vehicle check. If the vehicle wasn't reported stolen, no further action was taken, ie, no calls to determine why the car was there, etc.

One of them did. He apparently is scared that everyone he has to deal with has a history of violence against police.

OK, strike the reasonable bit.

And how often do LEOs encounter citizens who refuse to give name or DOB and/or refuse to present a photo ID during encounters? I don't mean vehicle drivers (required to produce license, fine), I mean pedestrians, passengers in cars (or planes), people at a scene to where the LEO is called, etc.

I'm not aware of any public place in the USA where I'm required to produce photo-ID on demand by a LEO if not engaged in a licensed activity (driving, fishing, hunting). I am aware of a number of people being hassled and arrested for refusing to show ID but then having the charges dropped (or never filed). That's harassment IMO. There are some places where you are required to give your name (Nevada, Hiibel). But I'm not at all sure I would be comfortable giving up my DOB or SSN. (There have been reports of LEOs at TSA checkpoints demanding SSN from pax.)

I'm genuinely concerned that I'm going to end up arrested some day because I'm not willing to cave into the papers-on-demand-please mentality that so many LEOs seem to have.

It may be within the LEO job description to run NCIC checks on routine encounters, but I'm not at all convinced it is constitutional or morally right to coerce or compel citizens into producing the information needed to conduct the NCIC check, even though I'm sure it happens all of the time. LEOs may respond that the individual "voluntarily" gave the info to get the encounter over with, and that's fine as long as it's truly voluntary and they would back off if the person rerfuses. But I don't know that any request coming from someone wearing a uniform and openly carrying a badge, baton, and gun, is truly "voluntary." And I don't know how many of today's LEOs (vs yesterdays "peace officers") are willing to back down in the face of pressure from a civilian rather than "dominate, intimidate, control" as per their training.

+1

I feel the same way. The law compels me to identify myself, which is to provide my name - that's it. I am under no obligation (outside of an airport sterile area) to provide my ID unless I am being stopped while doing something which would require a license, which was already discussed upthread.

If I'm grabbed on the street, I'll provide my name - but nothing else. If they arrest me on the basis of my refusal to hand over my ID, DOB, SSN or something else, I'll sue and I don't need to hire a lawyer to file such a suit or even prevail in court.