Another posting on the event in Florida. Sorry if it seems a dead horse is being beaten, but, geez, it only happened yesterday.
According to the Miami Herald, the police and federal authorities say the three men were uncooperative. It writes: "However, several other things conspired to escalate the incident even further," one of these things was "according to police sources, all three men at first were uncooperative - denying consent to search the car. 'It was probably not the right time for them to be copping an attitude with police,' said one federal law enforcement source who was up all night monitoring the investigation. 'But that's exactly what happened.'"
By not agreeing to a search, the three were simply asserting their 4th amendment rights against unwarranted searches.
It's not like the police could not search the car (and they, of course, did); they just had to provide probable cause, either then or later. It's too bad that the police and federal authorities are trying to deflect blame onto the three for escalating the situtation. It's a shame that the Herald writers, David Green and David Kidwell, don't counter the police account with a reference to the Bill of Rights, which I assume they both read in high school civics. Claiming your rights is not "copping an attitude" yet the writers included the line, without qualification, anyway.