Police: Two guys with a gun get into cab; officers follow until the driver commits a traffic violation, then pull the cab over

So some smart cops manage to get a few dangerous scumbags off the street without anyone being put harms way and yet you're still going to criticize the officers?

Thank you Boston PD. Nice work.

My guess was the cops wanted to conduct the stop in a way that it's less likely the case can be thrown out on a technicality.

And a judge would most surely throw out the charges if the pretext was an administration hackney check.

But in theory you would be right, if the cops actually thought the had reasonable suspicion that these men actually had weapons, but judges often rule against that, and almost always want a traffic violation as the pretext of the stop.

Now you also have a cab driver who will most likely admit to the traffic violation (if the cops were smart, they would have given hima a written warning)

Something similar happened a few years ago with a robbery suspect who jumped in a cab that was later stopped by police. The officers recovered the two guns used in the robbery, zip ties like the ones used to restrain the victims, and the cash that was stolen.

Here's a line from the judge's decision suppressing the guns, zip ties, and cash from evidence:

Having found that the blocking of the cab and approach of the three officers constituted a seizure, the court must determine whether the stop was 'permissible under the circumstances.' Id. A traffic violation would justify the stop, see Commonwealth v. Torres, 443 Mass. 669, 673 (2001); however, there is no evidence that the cab committed any manner of moving violation .... This court therefore has no alternative but to suppress the evidence that was the fruit of the unconstitutional seizure of the taxicab and the defendant who was riding in it."

So it seems that this cop knew the rules pretty well, as it turns out.