Cleveland Police Run Fake Drug Checkpoints on Interstate, Arrest People Who Seek to Evade

MAYFIELD HEIGHTS, Ohio -- Police are not allowed to use checkpoints to search motorists and their vehicles for drugs. So, in Mayfield Heights, officers are trying the next-best thing -- fake drug checkpoints.

Police gathered in the express lanes of Interstate 271 on Monday after placing signs along the freeway warning motorists that a drug checkpoint lay ahead.

There was no checkpoint, only police waiting for motorists to react suspiciously after seeing the signs. A Mayfield Heights assistant prosecutor says it's a lawful and legitimate tactic in his city's war on drugs.

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

Civil libertarians and one of the people who was stopped and searched are skeptical. They wonder if officers were profiling motorists and whether anyone's Fourth Amendment right against unlawful searches and seizures was violated.