Increasingly, Coloradans driving out of state are finding themselves the target of questionable highway patrol stops that seem to always end with an attempt to flush out any weed the driver may have on themselves. Cops in other states deny they are singling out Coloradans, but anyone paying even the slightest bit of attention knows that’s crap.
One Coloradan is stepping up and doing something about it: 69-year-old Darien Roseen, a man who has never once tried marijuana in his life. Roseen has filed a lawsuit against Idaho State Police officers in Payette County, Idaho.
Last year, Roseen – in a Honda truck with Colorado plates – was driving back to Colorado from a visit with his daughter and her family in Washington state. Just around noon, Roseen felt nature calling and pulled off I-84 to a rest stop to relieve himself. As he was making his exit, an Idaho State Policeman that had been parked in the median popped up behind him and followed him to the public bathroom parking lot.
As the two pulled into rest stop, the cop popped on his lights and walked over to Roseen’s truck. According to the cop, Roseen failed to signal before the exit and bumped two curbs at the rest stop.
Roseen says that’s a load of horse manure. He did signal before he pulled off the highway and he hit the curbs because he couldn’t see them underneath the piles of snow, he insists. Not only that, but he was slightly distracted from a state cop suddenly appearing on his ass.
The cop then asked why Roseen had exited the highway (not that it should matter). When Roseen told the pigheaded moron that he pulled off at the public restroom to use the public restroom, the cop said he was lying. He said Roseen had to have been avoiding the cop because h was carrying contraband. Roseen says the cop was also insisting that Roseen’s eyes were all stoned looking and glassy.
“When’s the last time you used any marijuana,” the cop finally asked Roseen, according to the lawsuit. The moron kept insisting that he could smell pot in Roseen’s “trunk” (keep in mind Roseen was driving a Honda Ridgeline pickup truck). Roseen kept denying that there was any pot in his car. Nor would there be. He’s never smoked pot, nor does he intend to do so. Ever. He also refused to allow the cops to search his truck, though.
But the truth didn’t work, as everyone knows law enforcement hates it when they are wrong and when someone exercises their rights. So they held Roseen and his truck. The cop drove Roseen to the sheriff’s office while another cop – without consent – drove Roseen’s truck. Once at the sheriff’s office, the cops said Roseen could leave, but his truck would have to stay until they were done searching it and finding absolutely nothing illegal.
After waiting on these bumble-headed morons to finish violating his rights even further, Roseen was let go with a careless driving ticket.
The Idaho State Police have not commented on the lawsuit other than to say that they don’t pull over drivers without a reason.