Originally Posted by
thedjmac
I was stopped by the city police last night in SC. I had a small bag of pot and told the officer about it. He took that and a few Viagra pills (like 6 or 7) that a friend had given me and I was just stupid to have left in the console. He asked me to help him bust the pot dealer. He said that I would need to call this other officer and gave me his name and number. Then he let me go. I did not get a ticket, notice to appear, any kind of report or anything. I was never read my rights, put in cuffs, arrested or anything either. What could happen if I don't call them back? Could they change their mind and arrest or charge me? He said the Viagra was a bigger deal than the pot but if I would help them that they would help me. I said ok because I just wanted to get out of there. I have heard of the police charging you and then working out something if you help them but never just taking your drugs and saying to call someone. Any advice/insight is appreciated.
Ok, as a officer we often caught people with just a little pot, we preferred to scare them, take them in, put them in holding cells with either pretend bad guys or sometimes real bad guys.
But again it is our option to arrest or not arrest, I had one man who was slightly lost one night walk up to me with a joint behind his ear and ask directions.
To be honest if you arrest on such a minor charge, you have to do an incident report, a booking report, the person has to be fingerprinted and held till they make bond or appear in front of the judge to be released pending trial. Then you have to fill out an evidence sheet, part of the evidence has to be taken and/or sent to the state crime lab for testing
(it takes about 6 months to get back from the lab) the officers the police does is OK for the arrest but not for trial. ( it is OK to show probable cause)
So by this time the officer will be off the street about 1 to 2 hours, the city or department will spend about 200 dollars in the booking and the testing. So when you get to court you would get 20 hours community service, maybe a 200 fine. In general most cops were young once and don't really care about a very small amount of drugs ( for he viraga, it is only illegal if you don't have a prescription but again it would have to be sent to be tested also) Most likely they had a good laught about you at the department. Joking how you lost your "high" in more ways than one that night. Really and truly for one or two joint amount seldon would the average traffic cop stop you for it from my experience.
Ok, they most likely don't expect you to call, and it may not even be a real cop they gave you the name of, but again, they may want you to become an informant, telling them who and where you got the drugs, letting you make a buy or two for them. ( but most likely not)
If he had wanted to know who your supplier was, he would have asked you then. Now he will threaten to still arrest you and charge you for the drugs if you don't ( and they really want you to do this, can they, yes if the properly tagged the evidence and did an incident report about this.
We also often found crimes and knew who the criminal was but we turned it over to the investigators to handle. So we would file the evidence, do a report and the investigators took it from there.