“Police Abuse Highway 401”

A few weeks ago while on the 401 East headed to the Morningside exit, I was pulled over by a Undercover OPP cruiser just after the Markham Rd Exit. At the time I had my 2 year old son in the back seat. From the moment I pulled over on the shoulder, nearly 13 minutes had passed and the officer had not exited their vehicle. My young son was crying for his milk bottle which was too far for me to reach, so I decided to open the door and give him his bottle and hopefully the cop would understand why I stepped out.

The moment I opened the door, the female officer jumped out of her cruiser and with language laced with extreme profanity told me to get back into my vehicle. Her body language was threatening and she was seconds away from deploying her gun. Within minutes, I had 6 OPP police cars surrounding me, and what was a normal traffic stop, turned into a high risk take down. They put on a huge show, told me to walk backwards, on my knees, hands behind my back, the usual all while my son was crying.

I was cuffed, while they proceeded to search every nook and cranny of my vehicle. Nearly 35 min after the whole incident started, believe it or not they proceeded to let me go with no apology, no tickets and no explanation for what took place. After much pleading and exercising my rights I was able to obtain 3 police badge numbers, including the original officer that did the traffic stop.

3 Days after the incident I get a call from a OPP staff sergeant, he basically asked me to tell him my side of the story but I hung up on him.

I'm no Lawyer but what they did to me that evening is not right. What options do I have legally to fight these officers?

MoJo728 wrote:3 Days after the incident I get a call from a OPP staff sergeant, he basically asked me to tell him my side of the story but I hung up on him.

Why did you hang up??

That sounds like a nightmare. It's pretty common knowledge not to get out of the car, but I would've waved my hands and tried to get her attention before exiting the car. My cousin works for OPP and the riskiest is often what we would think as routine traffic stops. Once, on the QEW, he pulled over some guy who then tried to run over him.

13 minutes without exiting sounds like they were pulling up a lot of information on the tags of your car - or their systems were slow. Is there any criminal background tied to anyone on that tag? Six cruisers pulling up sounds like overkill but their must be more to this story. And why did you hang up on the staff sergeant?

Marquisse wrote:That sounds like a nightmare. It's pretty common knowledge not to get out of the car, but I would've waved my hands and tried to get her attention before exiting the car. My cousin works for OPP and the riskiest is often what we would think as routine traffic stops. Once, on the QEW, he pulled over some guy who then tried to run over him.

13 minutes without exiting sounds like they were pulling up a lot of information on the tags of your car - or their systems were slow. Is there any criminal background tied to anyone on that tag? Six cruisers pulling up sounds like overkill but their must be more to this story. And why did you hang up on the staff sergeant?

The reason why I hanged up on the staff Sergeant is because he basically wouldn't allow me to finish my statements. Every time I tried to relay my experience that evening, he would immediately cut me off and defend his officers. I quickly realized I was dealing with bias veteran officer of the force that thinks all his officers actions are " Perfect".

I have no criminal record, never been arrested before, I'm fully licensed class G for the last 3 years and the vehicle belongs to me and registered under my name. I have no clue what the OPP's intentions where that day, Maybe the pulled me over because of my vehicles looks (2009 Honda Civic SI), or the way I look (young black male).

I have always distrusted the police, now I fear them!

Just a reminder that this is a traffic ticket forum. Unfortunately there are some bad apples out there and they always speak louder then the rest. We do strive to keep discussion here as fair as possible. My advise to you is to seek legal, lawyer, representation and try to avoid posting topics with "Police Abuse" as a title. Thank you.