Police bodycam videos can leave viewers shocked and raise questions about training. Yet the problem is not just instruction at law enforcement academies. Rookie officers learn by example on the streets, and the lessons are not always good.

A traffic stop in Alexandria, Louisiana, for example, shows how disregard for the Constitution can pass from one generation to the next. The city denies that “training or supervising” occurred during the incident, but police video shows an officer with less than one year of experience taking direction from a more senior partner.

The veteran officer tells his partner where to stand and what to do and later counsels him on how to deliver a citation. “Make sure you issue this one in a professional manner like I showed you a long time ago,” the veteran tells his partner while they confer privately.

Alexandria might use other terms, but most organizations would describe the interaction as on-the-job training. The unwilling participants in the encounter were motorist Mario Rosales and his girlfriend, Gracie Lasyone, two law-abiding citizens running errands together after work on June 15, 2022.

While stopped at a red light, a police SUV pulled up behind them and flashed its lights as they turned left on green. Rosales and Lasyone pulled over immediately, obeyed all commands, and remained calm.

The training that followed may not appear in any manual. There’s a good reason for this: Too much candor in the written curriculum can create legal exposure, which police trainers discovered in Euclid, Ohio , when they attempted to “ inject humor ” into a use-of-force seminar. The trainers showed a Chris Rock comedy sketch on police brutality, along with a cartoon depicting an officer beating an unarmed man with the caption: “Protecting and serving the poop out of you.”

The jokes triggered lawsuits against the city, and departments now take care to keep certain lessons off the books. Yet the Alexandria traffic stop highlights at least four unwritten rules that can violate the Constitution.

First, officers attempted to find a pretext. Before the police can stop someone, they need reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing. Courts will accept almost any excuse. “If us officers stay behind you long enough, we can find a reason to pull you over,” one Washington state officer brags on a TikTok video , which got her suspended — not for lying, but for telling the truth. In Alexandria, the officers fabricated a pretext, which is unconstitutional. They accused Rosales of failing to signal before turning, although their own dashcam video shows his blinker properly activated.

Second, officers prolonged the stop. Officers showed little interest in the phantom traffic violation. They ordered Rosales and Lasyone to exit their vehicle and then spent nearly 20 minutes interrogating them about unrelated matters. Most questions focused on drug activity and criminal history, although neither Rosales nor Lasyone does drugs, and both have clean records.

Third, officers flexed their authority. Before telling Rosales the reason for the stop, the officers frisked him and ordered him to empty his pockets. They ended the encounter by issuing multiple citations, which the city later dismissed.

Fourth, officers circled the wagons. Rosales and Lasyone responded to the abuse with a constitutional lawsuit . Our public interest law firm, the Institute for Justice, represents them. Instead of apologizing and vowing reform, Alexandria defended its officers. The city also took steps to shield them with qualified immunity, a judge-made doctrine that protects government employees from civil liability when they violate the Constitution .

The lack of accountability leaves officers free to abuse again and again. In one Minnesota case , an officer lied under oath and framed more than 30 innocent people. One high school girl, who did nothing wrong, spent nearly two years at a high-security adult prison hundreds of miles from home. So far, the officer has escaped liability by claiming a type of immunity available only to federal agents. She also continues to work. A judge ruled on Jan. 23, 2023, that she and two partners illegally searched and arrested a man in an unrelated investigation.

Police officers need training. But reinforcing the wrong lessons can do more harm than good. And without true accountability, many people will be forced to worry about losing their constitutional rights when they see flashing lights in the rearview mirror.

Marie Miller is an attorney and Daryl James is a writer at the Institute for Justice in Arlington, Virginia.