How is this an FML?

That question is only asked if the officer is on a fishing expedition. If an officer is justified in searching your car, he won't ask. He'll handcuff you, read you your rights, and get a warrant. If you feel you were treated unfairly, file a complaint with internal affairs. Don't contact his supervisor. Once you contact his supervisor, internal affairs won't touch it until his supervisor has addressed the issue. His supervisor will probably sweep it under the rug and write it up to show that action was taken. Internal affairs will accept this and mark it as resolved. Internal affairs will actually do something.

actually i cop speak this means: yes sir/mam i have something to hide. so im making your day just a little bit harder by making you get a search warrent to search, when in reality im just dragging this thing out for possibly an hour when it could take only a few minutes of both of our time, so i will prolong my time outside of jail. dude your an idiot and they most likely had probable cause in the first place.

See, over here if you consent to a police search then it is considered voluntary and since a search can't be voluntary, it is considered illegal. Unless they take you to the police station of course, but on the street they can't do it and as long as you give them no reason to arrest you then you can walk free.

I agree with other commenters in saying that the statement, "Officer, I do not consent to any searches," does not allow the officer to reasonably suspect that the person is up to any sort of criminal activity. Some form of /physical/ proof is needed, in actuality. I find it abhorrent that a person would be detained for declaring his rights. But just for future reference, it might be best only to use this statement in response to a request by the officer to search your car, rather than saying it outright. The FML doesn't give many details, but did the guy ever even search his car and find anything illegal? To be handcuffed just for that statement is blatant abuse in my opinion.

same thing happened to my boyfriend. he was just sitting in his car with his friend on the side of the road. a cop came over and asked for his license. The cop then says, can i search your car, and my boyfriend says, um no. the cop then handcuffs him and stuffs him in the back of the cop car....and continues to search his car. the police is the most corrupt thing EVER

148 - "Unreasonable" seizures of person. It wasn't unreasonable. It was legal. I'm not going to convince you it's constitutional(it is) as well as legal, but you can't argue with the fact that not being able to arrest someone for refusing a search would be ridiculous, and there's not really any alternative. You just admitted the cop most likely had a probable cause, but you're going to assume the very unlikely situation of the cop not having probable cause regardless? That's... incredibly stupid and senseless. There are many reasons the OP would leave the fact there was probably cause out of his story and none that I can think of that would explain him not including his complete innocence.

Wtf did you think would happen? If a cop wants to search your car, he's going to search your car. It seems like a lot of people on this site are very niave..

Oops, double post.

It would, they always hear what they want to hear.