By the way, I was once stopped by US police for the exact same reason (reckless driving) in a situation where that was not true either. They said I had swerved over the white lines on the edge of the freeway. I hadn't done so.
Then they said I had bloodshot eyes (presumably setting me up for a drug-taking charge or something), which also wasn't true. In fact, I was then a young man driving a very cheap car through an expensive neighbourhood. I was on my way home from a sculpture class, an explanation that probably upset their framework - and wearing clay-covered dungarees. And, of course, I have an English accent.
So I know that US cops do pro-active stuff to people they think don't belong or fit a profile, and they may lie when doing so. I can see how a situation like that might escalate if the police people have a sense of their own superiority and, unlike me, you fall into a "suspicious" category. Poor, black American in shoddy old car apparently being one such category.
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