Portsmouth police DUI checkpoint nets arrests, gun, drugs

Nice to read your forum, what all I can say is most probably passenger does not have to identify himself during a "routine" traffic stop.

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In most cases it is true, the passenger does not have to identify himself during a "routine" traffic stop. However the officer does have a legal right to ask passengers to get out of the car and they must do so! IN a more than "routine" traffic stop, such as having probable cause to believe the vehicle was (or is going to be), used to commmit a crime, everyone in the vehicle may be taken into "Investigative Detention" and yes, even handcuffed until they can be indentified and determined if they were or were not involved in the crime the vehicle was stopped for!This has been upheld in The Supreme Court several times.

Also, as far as "Driving" being a right,,not so! Anything that involves some type of testing, special requirements,certain limitations or licensing is a "Privilege" that is bestowed upon an individual after those requirements are met.

Yup, people do that, but mature adults give up the car at the same time and ride public transport until they can afford to be insured again . . . Cheers, MGM

FOUR DUI arrests, a firearms violation and a parole violation. And the check point didn't even run four hours! A very worthwhile four hours it sounds like to me.

It's ONE check point on ONE highway. Just one out of all the highways in the entire area. Two drivers who were intoxicated were taken off the road, either one of them could have killed someone. Others were cited also for other violations. This was no massive invasion of privacy, no, far, far from it. It was no massive show of a police force, it was very minor one. I'm not afraid of more checkpoints: I'm afraid of the people they miss by not having more of them! If they had around the clock checkpoints everywhere, THEN I'd be concerned. We are far, far from such happening. So no, the sky isn't falling yet. The police aren't beating down any doors to make people disappear in the night. They are just trying to make our streets safer. I say more power to them!

1st, jreid8231, the SC ruled that those shakedown stops are unconstitutional (I don't mean to imply you do not know the law, but I wanted to mention that specifically -- and the SC probably ruled that after your stop). Reasonable suspicion and probable cause are two different concepts -- CrazyTedVB, you may want to brush up on your law. You are wrong. Read Terry v. Ohio, for starters. Elsie-eye, any court, not just the SC, is enough to take up a constitutional violation. Finally, just because you are charged with a crime, it does not mean you are guilty, so don't pop the cork on your champagne for a DUI conviction yet. Remember, there is a whole innocent until proven guilty concept in this judicial system.

I think once you go out in public you give up your right to privacy. There is a difference between being in a car on a public road and being behind closed doors in a private residence.
But if you really don't want to get arrested, don't break the law.

I agree with removing criminals from the streets but many of you are missing the point and need a history class or two. The occasional checkpoint now but just like herpes it will spread until while at the mall you will here "let me see your papers" Give them amn inch and they will take a mile. Wake up as what may not effect you now will one day bite you in the rear!

Wow, what a percentage of illegal activities going on in Portsmouth. It is probably just as high in the other areas of Hampton Roads. It is just that Portsmouth appears to be doing something about it. A job well done by Portsmouth police! Keep up the good work, and to the other towns in Hampton Roads, let's start the enforcement that we see in Portsmouth. Make it safer for the law abiding citizens. When these people are cited for lack of drivers license and lack of insurance I hope that their cars are being towed away from the scene instead of just a ticket being issued. Tough enforcement is needed to regain control of traffic laws. Offenders get no pity from me. One accident involving an uninsured/unlicensed driver will quickly ruin a victims life with very little recourse. Your left on your own to recover damages from someone who is unable/unwilling to purchase the proper coverage, and you will be accused by him/her of the accident and have to suffer the pains of their lawyers. What a joke! Thanks again Portsmouth police for a job well done. Now if you could only give the mayor a ticket for opening his mouth it would be perfect!

Most folks can barely make ends meet do to this recession. They have to do a lot of give and take, car insurance is one of the first that fails to get paid, then it’s personal property tax, then child support and so on. The courts and DMV take your license for this and DMV mails you a letter which anyone can intercept. Then your driving on a suspended license. I say tow the car and put it in impound and sell it at auction regardless if it is paid for or not. That is cash coming into the city. Bet they pay the fines and get legal real quick.

Perhaps we work in different cities. In the city where I work, if I were to do a traffic stop with no Probable Cause, and it resulted in perhaps a drug arrest, or finding a gun, etc, it would be dismissed without my having had probable cause to stop it in the first place-- for example, an expired inspection sticker.
I know this because I've had cases dismissed by judges who consider anything less than probable cause (such as a traffic offense) to be not acceptable. I could give you countless examples of that, but not in a public forum.

You may have probable cause to stop a vehicle but that is not what is required under the law to stop a vehicle. You can stop a car without probable cause. Yes, running a red light is probable cause but that is not the type of thing I'm talking about. You can stop a vehicle for a lot less than that. Something as simple as an inspection sticker that looks suspicious like it does not belong to the vehicle. When you see it, you don't have probable cause to arrest anyone but you do have a legal right to stop the car and investigate the sticker. Then you build probable cause or you don't. Ticket/Arrest or release.

You only need reasonable suspicion to stop a vehicle. You need probable cause to affect an arrest. I dealt with this personally fro twelve years and know of what I speak. That is the law. Reasonable suspicion for a stop, probable cause for arrest. If you sort-of match a description of a suspect, I could stop you and deal with you. If I built more, I could arrest you for the robbery. If I saw something on your car that appeared to be illegal or suspicious, I could stop you to investigate further. After stopping you, I could then build probable cause to arrest you. That is actually the way the courts have ruled.

Well, the simple act of driving a vehicle does not concern the government-- as long as you are driving it on private property. You can drive all you want without a license on your own property, or on the property of any private individual or company that would allow you to. You can own a car and drive it all around your property without license plates, without registration, without an inspection, and even without a driver's license. The difference comes WHEN YOU TAKE IT OUT ON THE PUBLIC STREETS. The streets are owned by the government, either local in the case of city streets, or the state when it comes to highways, and even the federal government. At that point, since a vehicle is so danegrous and can and does cause more death and destruction when misused than all the gun crimes put together, the government does and should regulate and monitor its use.
Furthermore, the United States is among the LEAST regulated countries, as far as vehicles go. Try owning and driving a car in Europe, as a European. In some countries there, a driver's license costs upwards of $2000 to acquire. Inspections are MUCH more severe. In some countries you can't put a vehicle over 2 years old

Sounds silly, doesn't it? About as silly as fussing about checkpoints that serve a valuable service to the community and are legal. Of course, you are free to take it up with the Supreme Court if you think it's a Constitutional violation.

Regarding Meghan Landowski...it's going on four months since she was murdered. While the realistic expectation isn't that this brutal crime would be solved in an hour, or a day, or a week, I would say that after four months, most reasonable people's hope for justice has faded.

Meghan's murder has left the media spotlight. This is hurtful to those of us who knew this very nice young girl and her family, and the fact that the crime has not been solved should indeed be a cause for concern to others in the area who have children home alone in the afternoon.

I may be wrong but driving is a privilege not a right.

But that's only the case because a government institution declared it to be. I don't believe the government should be able to just declare away your 4th amendment rights by saying a very common activity is a privilege.

Wrong, Probable Cause is needed for a traffic stop, not Reasonable Suspicion. I am referring here to normal traffic stops, not "checkpoints". For example, Probable Cause could be a burned out brakelight... an expired license plate... failure to stop for a stopsign, etc. These are Probable Cause that a local or state traffic law has been broken, and are what is needed to stop the car. There is no such thing as "reasonable suspicion" that a driver has gone through a red light (for example), only Probable Cause.

The courts have established what is reasonable under the fourth amendment. Also, I will state again, an officer only need reasonable suspicion to stop you, not probably cause. You need probable cause for an arrest, not a stop. The courts have also established over the years the control of passengers in cars that have been legally stopped. Again, the courts have established the definition of legally stopped. Do some research and you'll find it all out. Coming on here and stating that the stops are illegal does not make it so.

No one notices them much since they are not that common, but what if they do it all the time. I think you would have the feeling of living in a country like North Korea. If they do it once a blue mooon, or all the time it's still does not sit well with me. On the water they do it all the time, and I do not care for that either. It does not matter if they are searching for guns, drugs, drunks or the paternalistic safety checks it still is at odds with the values of our country. "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety", Benjamin Franklin

If we could get all of the people off the road who have suspended licenses we could solve our traffic problems in this Tidewater area. We need to find a way to do it. Maybe higher fines for suspended drivers when they are caught.