Shoplifting, Larceny, Robbery, Theft Convicted but not cited...

[janitorlp]

If I was leaving a 24hr. Ingles shopping center at 2:30 in the morning, and an officer pulls in as i'm leaving, and sees 1 of the 4 occupants of my car get in and out of my vehicle. Does this give him the right to follow me and pull me over for that reason alone? This was the case one night a year 1/2 ago when i was arrested for shoplifting, (which led to the discovery of a burglary that night as well by the search of my trunk). I admit guilt to what i had done, but felt that his search and reason for pulling me over was illegal. I commited two crimes this night under the influence of alcohol and a bad crowd all under the age of 21. We had removed the door of a golf driving range and stole various items such as golf balls, gloves, candybars, a small television(which i stupidly grabbed in a giddy manor), and a huge bug zapper. Initially we had only gone there for golf balls to hit while we were drunk... it went bad really fast. I received a felony burglary b.c. the small $99 looking t.v. was really a $900 time lapse recording security monitor. This all happened 2 hours before being pulled over leaving Ingles. At Ingles we had been shoplifting beer and wine with no one in the store to see us. The police officer that saw us leaving just so happened to be duing a routine area scan and saw us leaving in my '84 cavalier. When he pulled me over i was nearly out of his jurisdiction and was following every traffic law. When he approached he didn't ask anything involving a traffic violation. He merely asked what i was doin at Ingles. He soon detected alcohol, which led to a search of my vehicle, which turned up evidence of shoplifting from Ingles. The several officers, now at the scene, call the shopping center and confirm the theft. They try to open my drunk, which is only accesible by key, and turn up unsuccesful. Apparently during the shoplifting, one of the guys i was with took the trunk key of my keyring in order for a quicker escape. After trying every key for several minutes they tell me they're going to have to use other means to open the trunk. Not knowing about the removed key and assuming it was taken off my keyring i asked the cops if they could at least look for it in the Ingles parking lot thinking it was dropped there. They said no and began ripping out my back seat. Is this legal?

 

[janitorlp]

i also received no ticket for why i was pulled over.