Legitimate traffic stop?

Gus Philpott
Woodstock Advocate
June 18, 2009

What was going on last night about 9:15PM, when several deputies were stopped with a car with five young adults in it on Route 31, just south of Route 176 in the Crystal Lake area? This happened roughly across the street from the Honda dealership and McDonald’s.

The driver was stopped and told his registration was expired. The deputies wanted to search the car, and the kids told them that they couldn’t search it.

Then a deputy reportedly told them that, because they refused to let the deputies search the car, it showed that “they were up to something,” and that gave the deputies “probable cause” to search the car.

At one point at least two of the boys were put up against the side of the car and searched. A girl’s purse was taken from her and the contents were dumped out on the ground. The witness also observed that deputies had drawn weapons.

One of the kids told the witness, “If we don’t give them what they want, one of us goes to jail.” A deputy reportedly told them that, if they “don’t answer questions perfectly, one of them was going to jail.”

The witness understood that the kids had been stopped on previous occasions.

No tickets were issued. No arrests were made. The witness inspected the license plate on the vehicle and noted that the registration was not expired.

Was a report written on last night’s traffic stop? There is only one way to find out. Stay tuned for more information.