The Sapience Society The advice of a self-proclaimed technological ninjician

Interrogated by a Cop!

So I was out tonight with one of my friends, we were sitting by this lake sort of by her house. We weren't there for any particular reason... we just wanted a place to sit and talk. Well, we had been there for a little bit and we were about to leave when some headlights showed up behind us. At first I just thought it was a car passing by on the nearby street, but then I noticed the headlights were directly behind my car, and partially obscured by a police style push bumper. The cop got out and I rolled down my window.

The first thing the cop did was shined his oversized mag light right at my eyes, which I responded to with the proper reaction of a person who had been sitting in darkness for the last half an hour. The cop took my reaction as a sign that I was either drunk or on some drug. He then asked me why my eyes were red, to which I replied "my eyes are like this a lot" ... ... ... "but not because I do drugs or anything." Smooth. The rest of the conversation wasn't very interesting, it was essentially fifteen minutes of "How much have you had to drink tonight?" My answer to which was that I'd had nothing to drink, which was the truth. At one point he even asked me if I would take a "PBT" (a breath test), which I agreed to but he had no right to administer.

Here's my question: is it illegal to be doing nothing while sitting parked with your car turned off?

After running my license, the police officer pointed out bit of graffiti on a nearby cement roadblock and said how a lot of kids came down there to drink or make trouble. He also said they've had incidences of people pushing cars into the lake after hit and runs. The whole conversation was pretty unnecessary and besides doesn't it seem like the police should have better things to be doing?

If anyone actually reads this I'd be interested in your opinion. Have you had something similar to this happen? Do you think the police are as effective as they should be?