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[Nessie]

there are guys who like to sink e.g. in womens clothing or fetish wear, i belive that would raise a lot of further questions.

Some of those guys are my friends.

I think it is just horribly unfair that if I sink with a crossdresser, and the cops were to show up, I will look totally normal in my regular sinkwear (which is just pants or shorts and a tee shirt or maybe one of those swim dresses) but HE will look weird.

But whatever it is we're guilty of...it'd be exactly the same thing.

Society can be stupid.

Nessie

[Boggy Man]

I'm glad nothing of that sort has ever happened to me. It sounds like they were looking for someone specific, and possibly you/your car came close to the description.

I agree with Aiko. I believe that the police were responding to some reported illegal/suspicious activity, and you just happened to be passing through the wrong place at the wrong time.

[Lomax]

...

Cops: Good evening sir, papers please.
Me: Of course, here you have them.

One of the great things (in my opinion) about England is that if the police ask you for "Papers," then "I'm not carrying any" is a perfectly acceptable answer, and there's nothing they can do about it.

This includes a driving licence if they stop your car. They can, I admit, give you a Seven-Day-Wonder - which means that you have a week to present your licence at a police station of your choice: but the principle remains that I can walk (or drive) my own streets in freedom without carrying a scrap of paper to prove I am who I say I am.

[Mynock]

Now these are some surprising answers!
First of all i thought the cops in the US have had more rights than over here. We do see their style of work quite often in documentaries (quite loud and demanding, quick at drawing their guns) and sometimes in the news (in case they beat someone up).

Over here can't stop you unless you're doing something wrong or you fit a description (IE someone called in the area called in your make/model of car as a suspicious vehicle). They can't just say "hey that guy's not from around here lets pull him over and search him" as it appears they did in your case.
Also, as far as "beating people up" goes, 99% of the time the guy on the receiving end of the beating desearved it. Great example of this is the now imfamous Rodney King footage. The guy taping that got real good footage of the LAPD beating Mr. King to the ground, but he failed to capture the events that lead to the beating (Ole' Rodney led them on a high speed chase down the freeway, then when cornered attacked the cops with a tire iron, all while hopped up on a really unhealthy dose of PCP).

[bbjohn]

I've known a few cops in my time, and it sounds to me like someone called them and said you were doing something suspicious, or there had been criminal activity going on in the area and they were checking you out. In America, a police officer has to have probable cause to stop someone, and they have to tell you why they stopped you. In other countries, including many of the democracies, the police need far less reason to stop someone than they do in America.

I live in a resort town where there have been accusations of too much of a police presence on busy holidays. At the same time, the number of incidents and accidents (and arrests) have decreased.

Pro-active law enforcement can often be a difficult balancing act. The police would rather prevent an incident than have to respond to one. At the same time, being TOO pro-active can be seen as heavy-handed or overly aggressive.

You were probably just in the wrong place at the wrong time, so the cop was checking you out just to be sure. At last you know they were out there doing their job.

Big Bad John

[bbjohn]

Also, as far as "beating people up" goes, 99% of the time the guy on the receiving end of the beating desearved it. Great example of this is the now imfamous Rodney King footage. The guy taping that got real good footage of the LAPD beating Mr. King to the ground, but he failed to capture the events that lead to the beating (Ole' Rodney led them on a high speed chase down the freeway, then when cornered attacked the cops with a tire iron, all while hopped up on a really unhealthy dose of PCP).

The guy with the video camera did get the footage of Mr. King attacking the officers. I know, I saw it. Unfortunately, the TV stations edited that part out. While one could argue the officers over-reacted, including that footage would certainly have put things in a very different perspective. I wonder what the TV stations were thinking.

Big Bad John

[Aiko]

I wonder what the TV stations were thinking.

What all TV stations are thinking: viewer levels

[Duncan Edwards]

I wonder what the TV stations were thinking.

What all TV stations are thinking: viewer levels

Exactly.

I can tell you from personal experience that cops in the US are generally pretty cool about things unless you provoke them. They have a job to do and if you aren't doing anything wrong they would rather be doing something else. They certainly aren't going to bother busting you for something a judge isn't going to care about when it gets to court. My best experience has always been a smile and a cooperative attitude will send them, or anyone else, on their way soon enough.

[bart1997]

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[Billie Bonce]

I would like to hear, if something like that has happened to one of you folks or you have thought about something of a back-story just in case.

I have to say, in my country such a story can happen but such actions of the police are illegal. They can do something like that in two cases
1) The driver is suspect in crime. If a crime happened, they may have "orientation" (as it is called in their professional language) to check all cars that fit certain criterion, say, any gray Toyota, or any driver with mustache. In Russia it's a typical practice to stop any car they want, but here in Ukraine such things are rare. Anyway, they must give explanation why they do it.
2) The police has a certain "action". Say, they have one week of extensive fight against drugs smuggling, so they would stop cars and search for drugs. Or, search for a case with million dollars. Or, search for a bounded girl in the trunk. But in such case they must announce such "action" in press in advance.

Different departments of our police has different tasks and different rights. Say, the road police (known as State Automobile Inspection) may stop cars and check the driver's license, the registration of the car, and especially sniff for drunk driving. But they have no rights to search the car. So, if they ask to open the trunk, the driver may open it, or may refuse and demand explanations. "Usual" police is almost impossible to see beyond populated localities. They never stop cars unless they are hunting for a certain criminal. Sometimes they may act together with the road police during "actions" described above.

But in reality the situation is much worse than I described. The problem is, we have enough bandits who wear police uniform (some of them may really work in police) and who may do anything with one purpose - to get money from the driver whom they stopped.

What about the muddy gear, I think "went fishing (or hiking, or picking mushrooms), got stuck in a bog, nearly drown, barely escaped" should work fine.