Now here’s a story for you, and whether or not you think it crosses the line or not is entirely up to you:
He dropped off his passengers, Robert Hensel Jr. and Ashley Payne, at around 9:30 p.m, he said. And then agents pulled over his 2005 Lincoln stretch limousine and two other limousines. They asked for documents and identification, to make sure he was licensed to drive a limo. He was.
‘Then they asked if they could search my vehicle,’ Belman said. ‘I said, ‘I’d rather not,’ because my clients weren’t there and I did not know if they wanted their things gone through. So I said no. They kinda got rude about it then.’
Belman said the agents said they would call a K-9 unit.
‘I said, ‘Please do. I’m not hiding nothing.”
Dogs sniffed outside the car without problem, but Belman refused their entry.
He was detained in his vehicle for about 50 minutes because he refused the search, he said.
‘Another reason I didn’t want them to search the vehicle is because they said, ‘If anything’s in there, you’ll be charged. You’re the captain of the vehicle.’ Later they tried to change their story, but I know what I heard.’
He asked the agents to call a friend of his on the Fredericksburg Police Force. When his friend showed up, Belman said he was released.
‘I did not let the officers search my vehicle,’ he said.
Fifty minutes? Detained? By DMV agents? And only when his friend showed up, Belman was released?
Perhaps I’m missing something, or perhaps my Jeffersonian values are off-center this week. Something here seems dangerously wrong, doesn’t it?