Inside the Unchecked Bus Searches by South Carolina Police

Routine searches of commercial buses violate privacy, target low-income passengers, and result in widespread violations.

This is part three of Operation Shakedown, a series about heavy-handed traffic enforcement tactics and property seizures in Spartanburg County, South Carolina. Click here to read part four.

 

South Carolina sheriff's deputies faced backlash when they boarded a Shaw University charter bus in October 2022 and started rummaging through students' personal belongings without a warrant. The historically black school filed a complaint with the Department of Justice. Now, newly released public records show the police intrusion was not an isolated incident.

Officers routinely pulled over and searched commercial buses during Operation Rolling Thunder in 2022, in Spartanburg County, South Carolina. Officials claim they do not know the precise number of bus searches that year, but a tally sheet shows 45 commercial motor vehicle inspections during the five-day operation. This matches reports from Operation Rolling Thunder in 2023, when the county stopped 45 buses in just four days—more than 11 per day.

Only a handful of these people did anything wrong. Officers found drugs on 11 buses and identified only six suspects. Yet the police treated all bus riders like criminals, often forcing innocent people off buses and going through their luggage for 45 minutes or longer.

'Used To This'

One bus driver transporting passengers from New York to Atlanta told officers he expects to face criminal treatment by police officers during his trips.

"(He) advised me that he was used to this and that it's routine for him to get pulled over during his trips," a Cherokee County deputy wrote in a report, included in 262 pages of records obtained by the Institute for Justice.

The reason for the selective enforcement is clear. Bus riders make soft targets for search and seizure. As a group, they tend to be lower-income. Reuters says a 12-hour bus ride "provides an insight into the lives of America's poor."

Once abuse occurs, bus passengers have little ability to call it out because they lack political clout. Unlike Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright, who called a news conference and cast suspicion on all bus riders during a 2022 news conference, the people he smeared rarely have a platform to respond.

Incidentally, many buses are also loaded with cash. Lower-income individuals are the most likely Americans to be "unbanked," meaning no one in the household has a checking or savings account. They do business in cash, which they are more likely to carry while traveling.

Anatomy of a Bus Search

Public records from Operation Rolling Thunder reveal how these cash grabs work. Police wait on Interstate 85 for buses to approach and then invent reasons to conduct traffic stops. Officers pulled over one bus for driving 5 miles per hour over the speed limit.

More typically, officers accused bus drivers of lane violations, which can mean swerving slightly without crossing any lines. Officers can use dramatic language to juice up this allegation. One sheriff's deputy told a Greyhound bus driver headed to Atlanta that he was "bouncing from side to side" within his lane.

Once the bus is pulled over, interdiction teams spring into action.

One officer asks the driver to step off the bus and open the undercarriage for a K-9 sniff. Another officer has the dog on a leash nearby, ready to go. Drivers invariably comply, and the dogs typically alert for something suspicious. Officers then use this evidence as probable cause to open suitcases.

If officers find contraband, they use this as probable cause to enter the cabin. If they do not find contraband, they get consent from the driver and search the cabin anyway.

Officers sometimes clear the cabin prior to these sweeps, forcing everyone onto the highway shoulder. "At this point all passengers were asked to exit the vehicle," a Gaffney County deputy wrote in one report. The command is phrased like a request, but instructions like these carry an implied threat of escalation if anyone refuses.

During Operation Rolling Thunder, records show nobody refused. The outcome was predetermined.

Comments

[Yuno Hoo]

Officials claim they do not know the precise number of bus searches that year,

only the precise number of overtime hours.

[Rise of the Impedance]

A team of cops on the side of a freeway, with dogs, guns, attitude, and a open desire to fuck up your life, "politely" asks you to open your luggage. Saying "no" may allow them to charge you with "obstruction", or at least form the basis for asset forfeiture of everything you have. Is refusing their "polite request" really an option? How can anything you do be considered voluntary at that point?

[Zeb]

Damn, if anything this is even worse than the private car stops and searches. At least with a car, there is some possibility of legitimate individualized suspicion of a crime being committed. There is absolutely no plausible way that they have any legitimate cause to search a bus passenger's belongings unless they already have a warrant to search a specific person or bag.

[Get To Da Chippah]

They all deserved it. Every one of those passengers should have studied up on every traffic law in every state they were traveling through, despite not even operating a motor vehicle themselves

love,
AT

[AT]

Lord, this is so stupid.

Only a handful of these people did anything wrong. Officers found drugs on 11 buses and identified only six suspects. Yet the police treated all bus riders like criminals.

Because they found contraband and criminals among them. Obviously this bus searching plan bore fruit. You can question the success ratio of it, but they DID in fact find criminals and contraband!

Meaning now they have to sort out who's who - at which point, they're going to be treated as suspects until ruled out to the contrary.

I mean, for pete's sake, what is the expectation from you clowns here?

Officers pulled over one bus for driving 5 miles per hour over the speed limit.

Legit.

officers accused bus drivers of lane violations

Also legit if they were in fact doing so. Dashcam would verify.

If they do not find contraband, they get consent from the driver and search the cabin anyway.

Also legit. A purchased seat on a bus isn't like a hotel room.

Officers sometimes clear the cabin prior to these sweeps, forcing everyone onto the highway shoulder.

That's because it's a much more controllable situation for them. When they're on the bus, most of the cop's visual field is limited by the rows of seats. Meaning they can't see if anyone is reaching for a weapon to pop-up from behind the seat with once in striking distance, or attempting to destroy/hide something. Nor can they do a meaningful visual idea of who's on the bus, so they can start ruling out suspects if they found contraband.

As a group, they tend to be lower-income. ... they lack political clout ... meaning no one in the household has a checking or savings account. They do business in cash.

Aww, *sad face*. Where's my tiny violin.

[AT]

ps. for any politicians or campaign staff reading this - especially those who are trying to put together reasonable plans for border control and illegal alien deportation - this bus approach would be an AWESOME way to round up illegals and get them on the fast track into being punted out of the country.

If anyone wants to fold that into their border problem campaign promises, that's the kind of thing I'm looking to see articulated rather than just blowing smoke about the subject in general.

Just saying.

[Get To Da Chippah]

Because they found contraband and criminals among them. Obviously this bus searching plan bore fruit. You can question the success ratio of it, but they DID in fact find criminals and contraband!

"Look, Your Honor, we found contraband on 6 people out of the 11 busloads we searched. That may mean that, at minimum, every passenger and item on 5 of the 11 buses were totally clean, but that shouldn’t be construed to make our searches unreasonable with regards to the 4th Amendment."

At what ratio, in your view, do random warrantless searches cease being reasonable? Is the 4th Amendment satisfied if the cops find one item of contraband in ten thousand warrantless searches? Fifty thousand? Fifty million? If you support the TSA then I have to figure the ratio must be that high or even higher.

[AT]

Again, what reasonable expectation of privacy do you have on a bus where the cops have established probable cause that something's amiss with one or more of its riders?

I suspect, Chip, that at the end of the day your big fear is that cops are abusing the use of things like drug-sniffing dogs to establish probable cause to justify a search. I only mention it because it's one of the scenarios that you (and the authors) typically come back to in asserting that the searches based upon them are unreasonable - but we already know it's not. There's been SCOTUS rulings on the subject for pete's sake (and it came from the DEI side of the bench at that!). I also suspect you have an issue with "pretextual stops" - to which I've already made it very plain: your rights and your duties are your responsibility to know and exercise, however inconvenient or undesirable you may find that.

I think your problem is that you've accepted the narrative of this series of highly repetitive articles that suggests there's something wrong with the overall methodology these cops are using to curb crime in and passing through SC.

Are they fishing expeditions? Arguably. But they're ones that catch fish. YMMV on the efficacy of it, but the fact remains that - insofar as this article is concerned:

1) There's a legitimate reason for pulling over the bus.
2a) Probable cause is established by K-9s and/or
2b) Consent to board/search is given by the driver of the bus.

Now it should be noted here that there IS still some reasonable expectation of privacy here what with regard to the riders and their possessions. However...

3) Emptying the bus has an entirely legitimate safety/POE basis.
4) It's not carte blanche access to root through everyone's stuff like they're ransacking the bus or something - they're limited in scope to where the dogs are keying.

The only thing I might suggest between 3 and 4 - they've got the bus stopped, they've got the scene controlled, why not take that extra step to call it in and really dot the i's and cross the t's.

This isn't as objectionable as you and Reason are trying to make it out to be. Set aside the ACAB narrative for a minute, and just look at it objectively. Who's harmed and how. No rights violation occurs, and if one does - if there's actual misconduct by the cops (eg. some proof that they faked the K-9 hit or something, which a cop would KNOW is unlawful, and thus negate QI) - then you have legal recourse for that. So, what's the issue at the end of the day here for you?

[Get To Da Chippah]

That was a lot of words you used without answering my question at all.

[AT]

My apologies – I thought the question was rhetorical, because I don’t know what kind of answer you expect me to give. We’ve already discussed that efficiacy in police work is less about ratios any more about results – to wit, if there are 200 witnesses and only 10 have meaningful investigative utility, was it a waste to interview them all when only 5% bore fruit; should forensics not waste their time investigating crime scene trace when so little of it is of investigative value once examined?

The question you should be asking is: is it the best way a police can do their job? And if not, what do you propose – realistically – they do better/different that wouldn’t result in a marked increase in crime due to a clear drop in actual policing (as we’ve seen in the effectively lawless BLM states where that’s precisely what’s happened).

[Get To Da Chippah]

My apologies – I thought the question was rhetorical, because I don’t know what kind of answer you expect me to give. We’ve already discussed that efficiacy in police work is less about ratios any more about results – to wit, if there are 200 witnesses and only 10 have meaningful investigative utility, was it a waste to interview them all when only 5% bore fruit; should forensics not waste their time investigating crime scene trace when so little of it is of investigative value once examined?

I was hoping for a numerical answer. What failure rate is unacceptable even if some of the time the police find something criminal? In your view, how many innocent people can be subjected to warrantless roadside searches based on flimsy and easily falsifiable evidence (The drug dog alerted! It’s go time, boys!) for every one criminal found? Give me a number, please. When you answer numerically, I will in turn respond to your earlier questions.

The question you should be asking is: is it the best way a police can do their job? And if not, what do you propose – realistically – they do better/different that wouldn’t result in a marked increase in crime due to a clear drop in actual policing (as we’ve seen in the effectively lawless BLM states where that’s precisely what’s happened).

I don’t know if it’s the best way to do their job, but it sure seems like an illegal way to do their job, at least as it applies to the Fourth Amendment. It’s not the responsibility of the citizenry to give up their rights so the police’s job can be easier. Nor is it acceptable for police forces to try to subvert rights in order to either root out crime or pad their budgets by seizing cash, which is not illegal to carry around in any amount.

[Get To Da Chippah]

Give me a number, please. When you answer numerically, I will in turn respond to your earlier questions.

Unsurprising.

[Zeb]

A dog sniff is a search. That shouldn't be allowed without some specific probable cause. The courts have gotten that one wrong. And that doesn't even address the unreliability of dogs. A handler can get a dog to alert any time they want.
Even assuming that the dog is reliable, knowing that someone on the bus has some drugs isn't good reason to search everyone on the bus. The 4th amendment requires specific, individualized cause for a search. It's ridiculous to say that people give up all expectations of privacy and 4th amendment protections when they buy a bus ticket.

[AT]

A dog sniff is a search.

It's actually not. Illinois v Caballes.

"A dog sniff conducted during a concededly lawful traffic stop that reveals no information other than the location of a substance that no individual has any right to possess does not violate the Fourth Amendment."

And shifting over to the Place decision (which Caballes cites and is based on) and opined by good 'ol Sandy, who was always a favorite Justice of mine: "We are aware of no other investigative procedure that is so limited both in the manner in which the information is obtained and in the content of the information revealed by the procedure. Therefore, we conclude that the particular course of investigation that the agents intended to pursue here -- exposure of respondent's luggage, which was located in a public place, to a trained canine -- did not constitute a "search" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment."

And yes, in case you're wondering, vehicles in transit on a public road are a "public place."

The big limitation on K9 sniffs pertain mainly to their timeliness. If a K9 alerts on something because he's there at the immediate time of the stop, that's perfectly legal. If you're detained or your vehicle seized to be held until a K9 unit can show up to sniff on it, that's not.

And that doesn’t even address the unreliability of dogs.

Well, luckily that's also been addressed by the Court. Florida v. Harris explains that really well. If you're going to challenge a K9 sniff on that point, you'd best be ready to make a case for the reliability and/or lack of training and certification of the dog, and/or a track record of false positives. And you'd best hope that they forgot to do blind training "(in which the handler does not know the location of drugs and so cannot cue the dog)".

A handler can get a dog to alert any time they want.

Maybe, but that's a good way to get your own K9 de-certified. If you provoke him to alert and you don't find anything - and that happens enough times - the reliability of that K9/handler will come into question.

Even assuming that the dog is reliable, knowing that someone on the bus has some drugs isn’t good reason to search everyone on the bus.

You realize that doesn't give them probable cause to just start tearing open everyone's bags and forcing everyone to turn out their pockets, right? (Though they may seek your voluntary consent in that regard.) If a K9 alerts on something specific, that individual or that parcel will be singled out for the search - because that's where the cause is limited. (That's actually one of the perks of K9 sniff - because it only alerts to that which you have no expectation of privacy, without any further intrusion whatsoever by that. It's why the Court defended it as such.)

Maybe what you meant was that it doesn't give them good reason to detain everyone on the bus? But, I mean, there's no real alternative to that. I suppose they could dismiss non-subjects as free to go - but, y'know, they're on that bus for a reason and alternative means of leaving the scene may not be available. Sucks, but it kinda is what it is.