We had just hit the outskirts of Presidio when we see a DPS car on the side of the road. My buddy was not speeding or driving suspiciously - he likes to avoid interaction with LE if he can. As soon as we pass the DPS car, he pulls out and lights us up. We pull over. It was a single trooper, and he pulled my buddy out of the car politely and took him back to his squad car to talk to him. He didn't bat an eyelash at me at the time, just took him back to the car and left me sitting there so I didn't have any opportunity to hand him my ID's (and yes, I was carrying at the time). Eventually he makes his way back up to passengers side of the car and asks me the open the door for him so he could talk to me. This is when things got, well, odd. I guess my buddy had told him we were on our way to Alpine to shoot at the range there, and so he asked me if we had guns in the car. As I said yes, I handed him my ID's - he just looked at me and said "oh thats ok, I don't need those" and didn't take them. I told him I had my carry weapon in a bag at my feet and he told me just to leave it there and that it was "ok". I'm still seated in the car at this point, and he asks where the other weapons are. I told him that there were in cases in the rear of the vehicle (Ford Explorer) so he states that he's going to go open the cargo door and take a look at them. I requested to get out of the vehicle to accompany him and he responded with a firm "No, please stay seated in the vehicle". All this time my buddy is still hanging out at the troopers car (he wasn't cuffed or anything, just standing by the front of the squad car). He begins to open the cases and says "I'm going to run the serial numbers on these". I asked him if he was allowed to do that, and he replied "It is a department thing. We do it when we feel it is necessary".
All of the time he was asking me questions about the types of guns, and some random questions about me. "Where are you from?", "How do you know him? (my friend)", "What are you doing down here?", "What do you do for a living?" were all asked. Never once did he ask my name. He got to the point where he uncased my Saiga 12 and said "What is this 'saiga 12 gauge? Is this a .22 or something?" and I seriously had to try not to laugh at him. At that point it was pretty clear to me that he was trying to see if the weapons actually belonged to me by determining if I was knowledgeable about them. Probably because he thought we were running guns. I responded with "No sir, that is a 12 gauge shotgun based on the AK design that is fed from detachable box magazines." and he said "Oh. That's pretty neat. Where'd you get it?", "A gun show in El Paso" and then he moved on to checking on the other guns. Aside from my buddies few handguns, that was the only weapon in the vehicle that looked like an Evil Black Rifle. In trying to be helpful (and admittedly probe him to see what he would say) I told him that I had a single shot bolt action .22 in the same case and talked to him about that, to which he volunteered "That's okay, I don't need to check that one". He then proceeded to ask me about my interest in guns and shooting and I explained to him that I was just guy who loved shooting and firearms.
With that he ceased his questioning, went back to his car for 10 or so minutes, came back, said "Thank you", closed the tailgate and walked away. He didn't check my carry gun, a G17 that was in the bag at my feet the whole time. Shortly after my buddy came back to the car and told me that we were clear to go. We drove off. I felt irritated, shocked, and sort of abused. He was pretty angry about the whole situation. He said that the DPS officer was grilling him at the car, asking similar questions to the ones he asked me but even more. He said the officer told him that he pulled us over because the rear left brake light wasn't working, which is a dubious claim at best. Why? Because my friend didn't brake at all (since we weren't speeding) until after the officer lit us up to initiate the stop. How could he possibly have seen the light was out before that? Additionally, he gave him a hard time about the registration of the vehicle, as it was originally done/under his mother-in-laws name and not his. I'm not 100% as to why the registration was in her name, but I believe it was because his In-laws had gifted the vehicle to him and their daughter prior to us being pulled over, and I'm guessing he hadn't done the registration (which was current, by the way) since then. At any rate, he was pretty seethingly upset by all of it because he felt violated and trampled for no apparent reason. The officer didn't ticket him for anything. By all rights, it seemed like it was simply a terry stop to try and bust someone for anything the DPS officer could find.
I learned many things from that. Mainly, that while many folks say just to say the whole "I do not consent to searches" line, that it is awfully hard to do when you have a DPS officer taking a somewhat imposing and threatening demeanor with you. Not that I disagree with being responsible for upholding my own civil rights, but I'm not ashamed to admit that the tactic of being bullied into giving something up was successful with me. I take issue with the approach the DPS officer used with me. As soon as he got the information he wanted, he was nothing but polite. At the time I felt sick knowing that as a responsible, law abiding citizen and supporter of the law that I was treated like a subjugated individual. I now know that regardless of how uncomfortable I might be made to feel, that I need to stand up for my rights. I've always been a 'goody two shoes' and have never been on the wrong side of the law, and I think that was actually used against me to gain my compliance. The whole "Well if you are a law abiding citizen, you don't have anything to worry about" approach. I still think it was very bizarre that he never asked my name, nor took ID from me to determine who I was, nor did he care about my CHL.
So, yes, I don't think incidents like yours and mine are at all rare. I've since heard a handful of other stories similar to ours where during a DPS stop the troopers ran checks on any firearms in the vehicle.
By the by, I lived in El Paso for my entire adult life until last march and I never felt like I was in any higher danger of being harmed and I live my life with heightened situational awareness. Lots of people talked trash about Northeast El Paso being unsafe (just like other 'choice' parts of town) but I never once witnessed an act of violent crime while living in different areas of town. Doesn't mean they didn't happen, of course. I treated my safety in El Paso while I was living there the same way I treat it here - anything can happen to anyone at any time. Just because El Paso is separated by a fence from one of the most dangerous cities in the world doesn't absolutely mean that it is actually less safe. EPPD, EPSO, USCBP, and all of the other LE/alphabet agencies operating in conjunction with DHS in El Paso keep it good and safe compared to what it could be. They do some hard work to keep it one of the safest cities in the US. Just my respectful opinion, however. :)texas-sig wrote:Do you actually know how many stolen weapons are registered in NCIC/TCIC, thousands. If your gun was stolen wouldn't you like it recovered? Or your vehicle? Same thing. Specially in TX with all the cartel and gang members that are living here. What you read or see in the news is not even a fraction of what actually goes on out in the streets. Public safety is first priority. Regardless. .