I was a cop for a while. I found out that putting out fires that will restart next week, and not being able to work on real solutions is not for me, however, my time as a cop was good for me in many ways.
To the cop-haters - If you brush all cops with the same brush, you're as bad as anyone else with a prejudice, and therefore part of the problem. You enter any interaction with a cop with a preconcieved notion of how things will go down, and that's a self-fulfilling prophecy. When someone approached me with the 'I knows my rights, and I'm gonna prove it to ya' attitude, I knew it was going to a longer and more tedious, if not downright dangerous...interaction. We all have stories of 'how I beat the cops and got away with one', including me, but the truth is, there's always someone 'bigger'...for me, not hard since I'm not a big guy, but I also don't have little guy syndrome. My favorite example is when I was on a call with another officer who was smaller than me, and the woman who had called asked him 'Does yo momma know where you is?' and it was everything I could do to keep a straight face! In fairness, he was a decent guy, and she was bigger than both of us together.
ImcLoud - I have no problem with how you acted, simply because you were prepared to pay for any consequences of your actions, including a ride downtown, until you were vindicated. The 'easy way' would have gotten you and your wife on your way, and warm again, far sooner. If you felt rookie needed 'a voice of reason' from a seasoned pro, whom you knew, that would have just meant a phone call. Personally, my primary objective would have been to get my wife home safe soonest. If I had been alone, then yes, my pigheadedness would have required me to be sure 'junior' learnt his lesson. Of course, it wasn't me, it was you, and you made your call based on your personality, and evidently your wife wasn't concerned, so no harm-no foul.
When I was on the road, we did 'find' reasons to pull over certain vehicles we knew were likely to be up to no good. However, we knew there better be a good articulable reason, or the fruit of the poisoned tree would render anything we did find irrelevant. So Junior's stop was pointless for any reason other than a power play, and as such, he needs to be 'encouraged' to find a different career...coming soon to a 'security' company near you.
It's another example of life's tradeoffs. What I get mad about is when someone's choice brings about a negative consequence and then they b!tch and complain. Take responsibility for your actions!! In this case, ImcLoud did exactly that - he chose to push the issue, knowing he was likely to be more inconvenienced, and did it anyway. He was 'right', based on the story he tells (no disrespect, but there are 3 sides to every story - he said, she said, and the truth), and being 'right' and sticking to his guns cost him somewhat, but he recognizes that. I can respect that completely.
Some of the posters here are repeating urban myths, untruths, and evidencing prejudices that reveal them to not have the integrity that they are complaining is missing in cops. Mirror, meet face, face, mirror...