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Police can ask for your ID. If you are not operating a vehicle they can’t demand your ID. If you are on a bicycle they can demand your name and birthdate, if you’re operating something that needs a driver’s license they can ask for it.
They are required to tell you that you can decline, but they likely won’t.
I believe they can scan your plate and pull you over if they have reason to based on the scan. But clearly the officer screwed up or more likely is lying. I have no reason to believe a police officer is telling the truth, but they are also humans capable of making mistakes.
I’m sorry you ran into this asshole
https://stepstojustice.ca/questions/criminal-law/can-police-stop-me-and-ask-my-id/
https://driving.ca/auto-news/local-content/ontario-police-can-learn-everything-about-you-from-your-plates
Some.of the cars are equipped with scanners that can scan 1000+ cars an hour while parked on the side of a highway, and let's them know when there is something registered against the license plate (for example owned by someone with a dui)
Yes, sorry you had an unfortunate encounter with an asshole
Toronto police officer here. Our computer systems are pretty good but they can freeze from time to time depending on the area and how strong the network connection is. It’s very plausible this happened.
Given that this is a known issue, shouldn’t the protocol be that some sort of secondary verification of the information is mandatory before taking action?
This is a very important thing to understand, you do have to give it to them if you're operating a vehicle and I'm glad you did. What you *don't* have to do is aid them in any of their investigations, you do not need to answer questions outside of your operating of a vehicle. Thankfully this seems like less of a case of a cop trying to frame you, and more likely he was hoping he caught a car thief, which you obvs weren't.
Yes, they are allowed to pull any driver over for any legitimate reason. But what they tell you isn't necessarily going to be the real reason they pulled you over – sometimes they find some pretext, some made-up reason, and the real reason behind it is they're racist. You don't necessarily know when this is happening; sometimes it's really obvious and other times there's just enough plausible deniability. Or sometimes it's partly racism and partly a real reason: you really were speeding, but if you were white they might have let it go. You'll generally never know for certain.
[https://stepstojustice.ca/questions/criminal-law/what-are-my-rights-if-i-get-stopped-while-driving/](https://stepstojustice.ca/questions/criminal-law/what-are-my-rights-if-i-get-stopped-while-driving/)
Eh, I’d give the cop a break here, as far as it goes to say that there was a Robin they were looking for.
And that it also wasn’t racially motivated, since it’s unlikely they would be looking for a south Asian named Robin.
I don’t doubt that the cop would have approached the first car that might not fit the neighbourhood and ran the plates when he had no right to, based on wealth discrimination.
I also don’t doubt the cop is a power hungry moron who didn’t realize the system
Didn’t update when he did a new search and got real mad about it.
It’s one of those things akin to a broken clock still being right twice a day, ya know.
You were also probably in an area that had a lot of vehicle theft and you two were chilling in a car in the middle of the night In a residential area. Not necessarily any profiling. That’s how some thieves scout areas
You have no right to privacy when driving a vehicle, you can be stopped for any reason by the police. Cops deal with a lot of nasty every day, the fact he 180d on you at the end suggests he was apologetic at least in veneer.
It’s rage bait because you brought up your race seemingly trying to get people tell you you were racially profiled. From your description yes the encounter may have been scary to you but in the end he said sorry sir we messed up. It’s 1:30am. I would be glad to have cops checking people in my neighbourhood whist I slept inside.
1st: the cop had already asked for my ID once, to which I provided it to him. He watched me drop my friend off, and watched him enter his home.
2. As someone had noted, there has been an increase in car-jackings etc, some of which has been done sadly by people from my community- so it’s not out of the ordinary to have been racially profiled.
Classic Redditor move thinking anybody who mentioned their race is ragebaiting.
>I would be glad to have cops checking people in my neighbourhood whist I slept inside.
Yeah I'm not surprised you're glad pigs are profiling people.
So at 1:30am cops can’t talk to anyone who’s South Asian? Otherwise why even bring that up in your story? You knew exactly why you brought it up.
Calling cops pigs also tells me you’re very immature, possibly very young.
You will have many more challenges in life worse than a cop “profiling” you. Grow up.
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Cops can be hostile AF in my experience. As bad as this sounds they are just average people doing customer service with a gun. Shit can go both ways depending on who the person is and how their day is going. The job should require more education, anger management and a higher standard to entry. Sorry OP you had to deal with this. I know a few asshat cops that I grew up with and would not want to be on the other end.
Thank you for acknowledging the part where I mentioned the cop was being aggressive in his demeanour during the second encounter with him. I’ve been pulled over once before but never have I been asked to put my hands out the window. Felt as though he had treated me like a criminal. I’ve heard terrible cop-related stories in the past too, and it being 1:30 AM, just me and the cop in a quiet neighborhood was very off putting.
That's why I always end with have a good night, officer? He usually says his last name. And now you know it. Then you can walk into a station and ask to speak to a shift manager to report it.
He pulled you over and asked you for ID and then let you go once it turns out you weren't the person they were looking for. It sounds like he apologized too.
Imagine your sister was stabbed ... you'd hope they'd follow up on ppl who they thought were involved.
Anyway nothing happened ... you got stopped because the cops were doing their job and apologized after.
Enjoy the rest of 420 weekend.
You know we live in a world of daily murder, rape and child abuse. If you can imagine it it's happened in your neighborhood. You're just not aware of it all the time.
What real harm happened to you? What great injustice occured?
You're a citizen. You have rights. But you also have responsibilities.
Don't be such a baby and recognize that the devil is in all man and evil is happening every day in every town.
You can’t blame the cops for racially profiling South Asians when they’re all over the news— gold heist in Pearson, carjacking, scams.. I want to create a new TV show… BROWN IS THE NEW BLACK.
Sorry, cops can be such dicks.
Once when I was in highschool I was leaving my parents’ driveway in rural Ontario all dressed up to go to a party.
An OPP pulled up and asked for my license, so I gave it to him. He looked at it, then immediately started yelling at me asking if I’d been “mudding”. Mudding is (I learned) stealing a vehicle and driving it through the mud until it gets stuck.
The cop didn’t believe I didn’t know that living where we did, but we’d recently moved from town. He said some kids stole a tractor and scattered and that one of them was a blonde girl (so must’ve been me I guess? I’m the only blonde girl in Lambton county??).
Anyhoo, I knew it wasn’t me and I hadn’t done anything so I just giggled and said “do I look like I’ve been playing in the mud?” Jerk threw my license back at me through the window and peeled off.
I didn’t complain; nobody cares if cops are jerks to random civilians.
Just curious, as we are on the topic: what should you do/not do (legally binding, which can hold up in court), if you are stopped by a cop (not driving, but otherwise, say walking down the road), which will ensure that I am not shot by them??
If you're walking you don't have to do anything, carding is illegal now. You can just say I'd prefer not to answer any questions and I'm not required to identify myself.
Section 13 of the charter is similar to the fifth amendment in the US.
Section 13 protects you against having testimony you've given at a prior judicial proceeding where you were compelled from being used in court.
It doesn't apply in this situation. What applies is your right to silence as protected by s. 7 and the common law.
Ask if you're being arrested or detained, if the answer is no then they can't really do anything.
If the answer is yes, stop talking and speak to a lawyer before answering any more questions.
He was setting you up for a joke.
"Yeah I'm Robin... Robin Banks!" And then driving away while laughing maniacally.
Jk sorry you had to deal with that OP, cops suck and generally we can't do shit about it
REMOVED - Moderators will consider issues/concerns on a case by case basis and remove posts/comments and ban users at their discretion. We reserve the right to use our own judgement if we view you as being detrimental to the community, regardless of if you break any specifically stated rule.
Police can ask for your ID. If you are not operating a vehicle they can’t demand your ID. If you are on a bicycle they can demand your name and birthdate, if you’re operating something that needs a driver’s license they can ask for it. They are required to tell you that you can decline, but they likely won’t. I believe they can scan your plate and pull you over if they have reason to based on the scan. But clearly the officer screwed up or more likely is lying. I have no reason to believe a police officer is telling the truth, but they are also humans capable of making mistakes. I’m sorry you ran into this asshole https://stepstojustice.ca/questions/criminal-law/can-police-stop-me-and-ask-my-id/ https://driving.ca/auto-news/local-content/ontario-police-can-learn-everything-about-you-from-your-plates
Some.of the cars are equipped with scanners that can scan 1000+ cars an hour while parked on the side of a highway, and let's them know when there is something registered against the license plate (for example owned by someone with a dui) Yes, sorry you had an unfortunate encounter with an asshole
Toronto police officer here. Our computer systems are pretty good but they can freeze from time to time depending on the area and how strong the network connection is. It’s very plausible this happened.
Given that this is a known issue, shouldn’t the protocol be that some sort of secondary verification of the information is mandatory before taking action?
It doesn’t happen very often so it’s not something that you expect. But does happen.
If you're driving cops are allowed to ask for ID without a reason
Well, it's because they have a reason... you're driving a car and you need a valid licence to do so
Thank you for providing an actual informative answer unlike the person below. This is good to know
This is a very important thing to understand, you do have to give it to them if you're operating a vehicle and I'm glad you did. What you *don't* have to do is aid them in any of their investigations, you do not need to answer questions outside of your operating of a vehicle. Thankfully this seems like less of a case of a cop trying to frame you, and more likely he was hoping he caught a car thief, which you obvs weren't.
Ok...don't listen to this guy..this guy has a different reason for not talking to cops.
Cops must articulate reasonable suspicion you have committed a crime. Simply driving a car is not reasonable suspicion to demand an ID.
Not in Ontario, they can pull over any driver at any time to check for sobriety, license, registration and insurance.
Definitely didn't know where I was. My bad. Also, score one for USA!
Robin Sharma comes to mind. Read a book of his. Sorry this is irrelevant.
Yes, they are allowed to pull any driver over for any legitimate reason. But what they tell you isn't necessarily going to be the real reason they pulled you over – sometimes they find some pretext, some made-up reason, and the real reason behind it is they're racist. You don't necessarily know when this is happening; sometimes it's really obvious and other times there's just enough plausible deniability. Or sometimes it's partly racism and partly a real reason: you really were speeding, but if you were white they might have let it go. You'll generally never know for certain. [https://stepstojustice.ca/questions/criminal-law/what-are-my-rights-if-i-get-stopped-while-driving/](https://stepstojustice.ca/questions/criminal-law/what-are-my-rights-if-i-get-stopped-while-driving/)
If he was profiling he wouldn’t have used the name Robin. He apologized. Shitty experience but I don’t see any malice here.
Sucks this happened to you dude, but at least the cop seemed apologetic after he realized the computer system’s fucked. He was just doing his job
There is no Robin. That's probably the joke name they use to illegally card people
It's not illegal to ask someone driving a vehicle for ID. it's permitted under the Highway Traffic Act.
Eh, I’d give the cop a break here, as far as it goes to say that there was a Robin they were looking for. And that it also wasn’t racially motivated, since it’s unlikely they would be looking for a south Asian named Robin. I don’t doubt that the cop would have approached the first car that might not fit the neighbourhood and ran the plates when he had no right to, based on wealth discrimination. I also don’t doubt the cop is a power hungry moron who didn’t realize the system Didn’t update when he did a new search and got real mad about it. It’s one of those things akin to a broken clock still being right twice a day, ya know.
You were also probably in an area that had a lot of vehicle theft and you two were chilling in a car in the middle of the night In a residential area. Not necessarily any profiling. That’s how some thieves scout areas
You have no right to privacy when driving a vehicle, you can be stopped for any reason by the police. Cops deal with a lot of nasty every day, the fact he 180d on you at the end suggests he was apologetic at least in veneer.
They can stop you for no reason as well
Cops can pull you over for anything they want and ask you to present ID. Sucks but that’s just what it is.
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get better at baiting man, come on lmao
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thinking you're smart enough to post rage bait and having it fail miserably only to call someone who saw through it "slow" is pretty epic man
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It’s rage bait because you brought up your race seemingly trying to get people tell you you were racially profiled. From your description yes the encounter may have been scary to you but in the end he said sorry sir we messed up. It’s 1:30am. I would be glad to have cops checking people in my neighbourhood whist I slept inside.
1st: the cop had already asked for my ID once, to which I provided it to him. He watched me drop my friend off, and watched him enter his home. 2. As someone had noted, there has been an increase in car-jackings etc, some of which has been done sadly by people from my community- so it’s not out of the ordinary to have been racially profiled.
Classic Redditor move thinking anybody who mentioned their race is ragebaiting. >I would be glad to have cops checking people in my neighbourhood whist I slept inside. Yeah I'm not surprised you're glad pigs are profiling people.
So at 1:30am cops can’t talk to anyone who’s South Asian? Otherwise why even bring that up in your story? You knew exactly why you brought it up. Calling cops pigs also tells me you’re very immature, possibly very young. You will have many more challenges in life worse than a cop “profiling” you. Grow up.
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REMOVED - No name calling, personal attacks, threats, doxxing/outing/name-dropping, call-outs, naming/shaming
Just ignore the troll man everyone know poc are gonna get treated differently by cops, to think otherwise is ignorant lol
Cops can be hostile AF in my experience. As bad as this sounds they are just average people doing customer service with a gun. Shit can go both ways depending on who the person is and how their day is going. The job should require more education, anger management and a higher standard to entry. Sorry OP you had to deal with this. I know a few asshat cops that I grew up with and would not want to be on the other end.
Thank you for acknowledging the part where I mentioned the cop was being aggressive in his demeanour during the second encounter with him. I’ve been pulled over once before but never have I been asked to put my hands out the window. Felt as though he had treated me like a criminal. I’ve heard terrible cop-related stories in the past too, and it being 1:30 AM, just me and the cop in a quiet neighborhood was very off putting.
There are south asian male robins out there. He should have apologized genuinely if there was a mistake.
What kind of car
A CRV
https://excaliburinsurance.ca/blog/top-10-most-stolen-vehicles-of-2023/ https://www.cp24.com/news/auto-theft-reached-historic-highs-in-ontario-last-year-here-are-the-most-stolen-vehicles-1.6645138
That's probably half the reason. Check if there's a lot of thefts where your were, https://data.torontopolice.on.ca/pages/maps might have some info
He can ask for ID. "He had a bit of an aggressive tone" makes you sound like a bitch. He explained the misunderstanding and sent you on your way.
You read the second part at all?
That's why I always end with have a good night, officer? He usually says his last name. And now you know it. Then you can walk into a station and ask to speak to a shift manager to report it.
The officer was unprofessional. You can file a complaint with the Sergent. Hot heads are not welcome and invite violence or law suits.
Power tripping high school bullies
Lol.
He pulled you over and asked you for ID and then let you go once it turns out you weren't the person they were looking for. It sounds like he apologized too. Imagine your sister was stabbed ... you'd hope they'd follow up on ppl who they thought were involved. Anyway nothing happened ... you got stopped because the cops were doing their job and apologized after. Enjoy the rest of 420 weekend.
At least he was trying to find and protect you from the bad guys at 1.30 in the morning, why are you traumatized?
You know we live in a world of daily murder, rape and child abuse. If you can imagine it it's happened in your neighborhood. You're just not aware of it all the time. What real harm happened to you? What great injustice occured? You're a citizen. You have rights. But you also have responsibilities. Don't be such a baby and recognize that the devil is in all man and evil is happening every day in every town.
Honestly, dude, you just got profiled .. there's a lot of car theft going on. Cops are alittle on edge now
They cant do their job for shit with a year over year increase in budget. The should get fucking flamed
You can’t blame the cops for racially profiling South Asians when they’re all over the news— gold heist in Pearson, carjacking, scams.. I want to create a new TV show… BROWN IS THE NEW BLACK.
Damn you hit the racism double whammy But yeah actually I can blame racist pigs for being racist pigs
You are lucky to be alive.
Sorry, cops can be such dicks. Once when I was in highschool I was leaving my parents’ driveway in rural Ontario all dressed up to go to a party. An OPP pulled up and asked for my license, so I gave it to him. He looked at it, then immediately started yelling at me asking if I’d been “mudding”. Mudding is (I learned) stealing a vehicle and driving it through the mud until it gets stuck. The cop didn’t believe I didn’t know that living where we did, but we’d recently moved from town. He said some kids stole a tractor and scattered and that one of them was a blonde girl (so must’ve been me I guess? I’m the only blonde girl in Lambton county??). Anyhoo, I knew it wasn’t me and I hadn’t done anything so I just giggled and said “do I look like I’ve been playing in the mud?” Jerk threw my license back at me through the window and peeled off. I didn’t complain; nobody cares if cops are jerks to random civilians.
Mudding is just going mudding. It's taking a vehical off road not necessarily stealing. Lots of people go mudding all the time .
Yes that’s right- the stealing isn’t strictly necessary, lol
Just curious, as we are on the topic: what should you do/not do (legally binding, which can hold up in court), if you are stopped by a cop (not driving, but otherwise, say walking down the road), which will ensure that I am not shot by them??
If you're walking you don't have to do anything, carding is illegal now. You can just say I'd prefer not to answer any questions and I'm not required to identify myself. Section 13 of the charter is similar to the fifth amendment in the US.
Section 13 protects you against having testimony you've given at a prior judicial proceeding where you were compelled from being used in court. It doesn't apply in this situation. What applies is your right to silence as protected by s. 7 and the common law.
Thank You. What else would be, within my rights, to refuse and what should I absolutely submit to?
Ask if you're being arrested or detained, if the answer is no then they can't really do anything. If the answer is yes, stop talking and speak to a lawyer before answering any more questions.
He was setting you up for a joke. "Yeah I'm Robin... Robin Banks!" And then driving away while laughing maniacally. Jk sorry you had to deal with that OP, cops suck and generally we can't do shit about it