Use of fake drug checkpoints come into question

MAYFIELD HEIGHTS, Ohio -- Police in the Cleveland suburb of Mayfield Heights know they're not allowed to use checkpoints to search drivers and their cars for drugs.

So they're trying the next best thing: fake drug checkpoints.

Police in the city of 19,000 posted large yellow signs along Interstate 271 that warned drivers that there was a drug checkpoint ahead, to be prepared to stop and that a drug-sniffing police dog was in use.

There was no such checkpoint, just police officers waiting to see if any drivers would react suspiciously after seeing the signs.

Authorities say that four people were stopped, with some arrests and drugs seized. They declined to be more specific.

The Plain Dealer in Cleveland reports that some civil rights leaders and at least one person pulled over by police are questioning the tactic, wondering if it could violate the Fourth Amendment against unlawful searches and seizures.

"I don't think it accomplishes any public safety goals," said Terry Gilbert, a Cleveland civil rights attorney. "I don't think it's good to mislead the population for any reason if you're a government agency."

The Cleveland office of the American Civil Liberties Union said it will try to determine whether anyone's rights may be being violated.

Dominic Vitantonio, a Mayfield Heights assistant prosecutor, said the fake checkpoints are legal and a legitimate effort in the war on drugs.

"We should be applauded for doing this," Vitantonio said. "It's a good thing."

A 2000 U.S. Supreme Court ruling said actual drug checkpoints are not legal and that police can randomly stop cars for just two reasons: to prevent immigrants without legal permission to be in the United States and contraband from entering the country and to get drunken drivers off the road.

It's unclear how that ruling would apply to a fake drug checkpoint or whether any other police department in the nation has used similar tactics.