Dkgo winning this thread...

In the example of a kidnapping in your neighborhood and those that say don't talk to cops and say "I saw a suspicious van in the area" because MAYBE no one else saw it and now you would become a suspect...wtf?

What if you were the only who saw it and that's e best chance to get the kid back? If you want to err on the side of caution and not be falsely accused in the .1%(or whatever % since clearly no one knows) of the time it happens, go right ahead, you do have that right, but I'm damn sure if that's what I saw I'm telling the police, I'll take the chances of helping getting the kid back over being falsely accused any day.

Oh henry. What a wonderful world you must live in.

DoTheMath story reminded me of another interaction where again I cooperated with the police and again it saved me a lot of time and energy.

I had gone to pick-up McD's breakfast. While in line some guy comes in who I would discover was from the store next door. He accused me of stealing money from his store. I explained he had the wrong person as I was not in his store. He left. Since this was downtown it didn't take long for him to find a cop who came in and asked to speak to me. He asked if I had been in his store. I said no. He then asked me if I had a roll on me and there was some misunderstanding but eventually I understood he was asking if I had a roll of quarters. I pulled out the contents of my pockets to show paper money and a cell phone and invited him to search me which he declined. He then asked the cashier how I paid and she said with a twenty dollar bill. He apologized for wasting my time and went away. Cooperating here inconvenienced me for less than five minutes and never exposed me to no risk of ever being charged with anything. Not cooperating would have led to several hours of inconvenience.

I remembered some additional interactions yesterday so in total I am now up to nine non-traffic police interactions where I cooperated and in all of them it was the correct decision.

Case Closed,

So you believe that prosecutors routinely suppress exculpatory DNA?

One of the highlights of this thread is that somehow the side which claims jails are being filled up with innocent people and you must hire a lawyer before responding to questions about something you had no involvement in because they might railroad you into a suspect has declared that I am the conspiracy tinfoil hat nutjob for thinking that a defense attorney would be a bit biased when telling you how important defense attorneys are.

henry to be fair they do suppress. there was a little case here locally.

its known as the duke lacrosse case. have you heard of it?

well phx ans before me.

People with an attention span longer than yours might.

I never said that, though the southern Ontario monied elites might think it is true . Before I read your posts ITT, I had no reason to think Australian lawyers were inferior to "southern Ontario monied elites". If you knew anything about the culture of UWO, you'd know why I used that phrase. As it is, I cannot believe you are typical of Australian lawyers. I do have reason to believe that most Canadian lawyers do not want to be criminal defence attorneys. Unless the legal situation in Australia is more different than I think, I'd doubt it was true there either.

My comment about Australia's past as a dumping ground for criminals was made specifically with you in mind. You've confirmed the read that led to it.

I don't take the view that the attitude of either group is superior to the other. I said they might have diffferent attitudes. My experience with UWO grads conforms to what Henry 17 says about the intentions of UWO law students. He provides statistics, you provide anecdotal assertions that run contrary to my experience. How many non-criminal lawyers in Canada do you know? How many have you surveyed about their career statisfaction and intentions?

Given the proportion of lawyers who do not practice criminal law, there must be a lot of dissatisfied lawyers if your assertion that most lawyers / law students want to be criminal lawyers is true. Criminal defence attorneys account for much less than 5% of the lawyers in the US. This fact alone makes me doubt that most lawyers and law students want to practice criminal law.

Life's so much better in Australia, yet your scholarly brother is here in Ontario. Poor guy. I guess his LSAT score wasn't high enough to get into UofT. I also guess a higher proportion of Queens and McGill grads went into criminal law than UWO grads, at least in the year Henry 17 was talking about. It's still only a single digit percentage of all law grads at each school though.

I agree, in general. I'm the least travelled adult in my family. I've never been to the southern hemisphere, and people I know who've been to Australia tell me its a nice place to visit. You can never get too much education. What specifically do you think I need to learn?


P.S. I presume you are reacting with this inaccurate irrelvancy because you have nothing to say about my comments on the Justice Jackson quote that you repeatedly and erroneously asserted was part of an argument by him that people should never talk to the police. If you never got to that part of my post, perhaps you never finished reading Justice Jackson's opinion either.

no one says that it never happens, just that it is not happening routinely and jails are not being filled because of it.

besides that case was against white people so case closed and the like dont care as much

I agree. It all has to be subject to judgement, otherwise to save the very tiny chance you may incriminate yourself of a crime of which you're innocent, you're 100% going to cause yourself extra trouble all those times you have to deal with police for minor traffic stops and other random interactions.

I just remembered a situation when we where driving out of the gates at Yosemite National Park, very early in the morning (like 3am) headed for an alpine climb, and we where asked to pull over by the Rangers manning the gate. They told us a child had been reported missing in the park, and they asked if they could look inside the car and also inside the trunk. They said they wanted to see just enough to verify that we didn't have a child in the vehicle.

We let them peak in the windows, and we popped the trunk so they could take a look. Within 2 minutes we were on our way. I never even considered refusing the request because it seemed legit and they specifically told us their only interest was to quickly verify we didn't have a child stashed in our car. I suppose it would have been a tricky spot if we had a bail of weed in the trunk, but as it was that all we had was climbing equipment, in the best interest of the Rangers, ourselves saving time, and the missing child - I think we did the right thing.

O hai dere Blizzuff! Wat up?

Oh henry, do your own research. It's obvious you don't know what the hell you're talking about. I know how this will go before we even have this discussion. For one, the guy you were responding to never said he did not make this claim, which is funny. For two, nothing I could provide as far as evidence would make you admit you're wrong. Sure there are a ton of individual instances where prosecutors we found out prosecutors were doing this, but who cares? That does not imply a routine. All I know is that in Chicago there was a program that stretched several decades were torture was routinely used by the police force and overseen by the prosecutors office to get convictions. All I know for a fact is that a lot of prosecutors pull some crazy ass bull **** all the time all over the united states(I don't know about other countries, I am not so full of myself to think that I know how it goes down all over the world). Now we all know that you're a rich trust fund kid, and rich trust fund kids never really have to deal with real world problems. So this is outside of your realm of knowledge. No big deal. But in the real world the state will lean on you to get their convictions, and it is best to have someone there who actually knows what the hell they are doing and will have your back.

I've got two Pop Tarts and a handful of nickels. Will that get me 30 minutes?

Sorry man. At the time, I was very much of the mind that if you had nothing to hide, hide nothing. My views have evolved a bit since then.

Mostly the latter, I think. I don't remember feeling scared by the police, but I didn't want to miss the bus they had taken me off. I didn't ask, and he wasn't more specific.

The description could have been as general as "two young white guys" or as specific as "two white males, English speaking, ages 16 to 24, one height 6'2", slim build, 160lbs, shoulder length brown hair, mustache, dark shirt, blue jeans, and one... (I can't remember what the other guy looked like)".

Yes agreed. So the rational response is to do a risk analysis and decide whether cooperating in the specific situation is + or - EV.

Is |large chance x small benefit| > |very small chance x huge detriment| ?

The "don't ever talk to cops" crowd don't do risk analyses the same way I do.

Jbrochu, it's pretty clear that at that point you're not actually classed as a "suspect" at all. Had the police after looking in your car said anything other than "thank you, you may go now," that would be the time to not say anything.

I have a story which addresses something that has largely been avoided by the pro-talking side in this argument. That being that sometimes the police just get it all wrong. I won't go into too much detail about the case as it's really boring and, a few years later, I'm a little hazy on the precise details and this thread certainly doesn't require any discussion of the actual case here.

Basically, I was living with my dad in a house that was part of a long-running legal dispute between his girlfriend and some of her family. Her legal advice had said that we would be able to stay there given a particular, mostly-true, "story" and that by sticking to that we definitely weren't doing anything criminal. Anyway, another party in the dispute called the police to say that there were people in the house when there shouldn't be, so they came round to check things out.

I was home alone when they arrived and they said they were checking that I wasn't a burglar or squatter or whatever. I explained that the house was part of a complicated legal dispute and that I didn't understand it fully myself so didn't want to say anything at all about that should I say something inaccurate or incorrect, but they were welcome to sit inside and have a cup of tea while we waited for my dad, his girlfriend and her sister, who knew the case much better than I did and could fully explain the situation and avoid any confusion etc.

In the next 20 minutes I answered a few simple questions about who I was etc, but refused to comment on the legal situation. During this time they kept trying to push for more and more from me, and a few times to trick me into giving slightly different explanations for the same thing. I dealt with this all rather well and politely and no bad came of this, but in retrospect I wish I had said nothing at all and avoided the potential for misunderstandings or misstatements about even irrelevant details.

Anyway, the others arrived and it took maybe 15 minutes or so to calmly describe the exact situation to the police, who asked many questions and took copious amounts of notes. At the end they repeated the situation back to us and they were all happy that they'd understood fully, that we weren't committing any offences and they went on their way. All this was done without legal representation as they had been briefed on how to answer such questions and everyone frankly didn't think any was necessary. Tell the truth and we were all no guilty of anything.

A few weeks later the police had to submit reports to both ourselves and to the person who made the call to the police in the first place. The report that we received was frankly staggering in it's inaccuracy. Dates were wrong, and actually most of what we told them was wrong in general. They even listed someone essentially unconnected to any of this (my dad's girlfriend's ex husband!) as living in the house with us, when he's actually in a totally different country. Fortunately basically all of these errors ended up working for us and not harming any of us at all. But, that could have easily not been the case and instead had us looking at various criminal charges which were innocent of.

Again, the details of this case aren't important. I apologize if they are confusing or make it look as though I or my family had done anything illegal. We didn't is all that's important. However, talking to the police gave the police the opportunity to get things wrong. If they had gotten them wrong in a different way, we would have been looking at criminal charges we were not guilty of.

I have, remember? Around one factually innocent person is serving time (for having falsely confessed) for every 50,000 deserved prisoners. My feeling is that the views of experts are unreliable if those views either rely on this fact being untrue, or overstate the risk by never defining what the risk really is.

I allow for the fact that your line of work leads to far more interaction with deserved suspects who maintain their innocence than my line of work does. I simply do not cross paths with accused criminals, so it does not seem like a routine occurrence for people around me to be accused of crimes while protesting they had no part in it. Obviously it's different for you, but that doesn't make your experience representative of what's normal for the rest of us.

Couple years back we were working very late, and my new neighbour's alarm must have tripped. Cops show up, it's after midnight and they see two cars parked outside the suspected break-in, so they knocked on my door. I opened the door to ask what was up, and they explained why they were there. No, we've been here all night and hadn't seen or heard anything, but their alarm is new so perhaps faulty. Would you like me to come with you to check their doors?

We all walked through my shop to the rear door (I guess to make sure we weren't boring through the wall), checked the neighbour's door, walked up to the front and checked their front door and window, all good. Exchanged cards, and that was the end of it. I was never accused of breaking into my neighbour's shop.

It's nice having a forum full of white people talk about how remote the chances of them getting falsely arrested are. Ditto to conversations about the "hassle" of wasting an hour sitting there silently before being released compared to the hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars that innocent people routinely waste dealing with the justice system.

It's okay though, the cop ITT told you that he cooperates with police, as did the senior citizen, the 2-3 university kids with no exposure to the police whatsoever, and the frost-tipped bro who claimed that the only people who get falsely accused are mentally ******ed (and someone smart enough to date him...).

99% of the time you should not answer any question posed to you by the police.
The 1% of the time where you could answer questions to save a little time or money you're weighing that tiny benefit against ruining your finances, your job, and your social status. Your smooth talking will likely work... until the one time it doesn't. Reduce variance. Shut your mouth.

No lawyer will ever tell you otherwise.

Epic reading comprehension fail ITT.


I cooperate with the police in all situations, AMIRITE?

How about any evidence at all?

This happened in the 1970s and 1980s I don't deny that when the States was a more racist place it was a possibility but it isn't now. The world is too connected and the ability to video / audio record just to common.

My parents were first generation immigrants. My mom worked in a factory making frozen food and my dad worked construction. I was raised blue collar middle class. I have never had a trust fund of any kind nor have I inherited any great fortune.

This seems to be goal post shifting. No one is going to deny that interrogations involve leaning on people and putting pressure on them. It is a ****'en interrogation of someone who almost always is involved so no I don't expect them to serve tea and be polite. That is very different than routinely suppressing exculpatory DNA or any physical evidence to put innocent people in jail.

panda,

Your situation doesn't really fit what we are talking about because in reality you didn't know if what you were doing was illegal or not. That is very different than the situations we are discussing which typically involve knowing for a fact that you have done nothing wrong. The mistake in your example was not in talking to the police but in being in the house without first having a complete understanding of the situation and if you were or were not allowed to be there.

You don't know me!

This is a great point. You talk to the cops and say "XYZ," and they write it down in their notes wrong as "QYZ." Now there is a record that you admitted to Q, nevermind the fact that you never actually said it.

Maybe the cop wouldn't mind answering this, but if they have the grounds to bring you to the station, then don't they have the grounds to search your bag legally instead?

Getting back to the thread..

I was walking on a university campus around 9pm and someone I was with was smoking reefer. We part ways, I put on my headphones and start walking off campus. I walk across the parking lot, through a little wooded area, and am a few feet from the property line, when I notice that a SUV has pulled in to the lot behind me. I ignore it and keep walking, only to hear it pull out of the lot quickly, swing around the property and screech to a halt behind me on the main road.

I keep walking away slowly. I see the bouncing beam of a flashlight coming closer, then feel a hand grab my shoulder. Someone tries to swing me around towards them, and I hear an old voice yell "I SAID STOP". I jerk my arm away, turn around, quietly mutter "what the hell?" and pull out an earbud.

At this point, a 60 year old man steps forward, tries to grab my arm again, and quickly raises his mag-light high above his head in an effort to blind me/intimidate me.

Him: "I said stop, man. I know you were doing drugs. I can smell it on you. You're not allowed to go anywhere. I'm detaining you."

Me: "Umm... can you stop shining the flashlight in my eyes and holding it above your head like that? It's making me nervous and I don't want you to have a heart attack."

Him: "I will do whatever I want to, man. Where are the drugs, man?"

Me: "hahaha."

Him: "Ohh noooow you want to pull that silent **** on me, eh? Well that's fine, smart guy. I'm going to call the cops and don't you dare move."

Me: "Um... Okay I'm going to sit down so you don't have a panic attack."

*I sit*... *he radios for police*

At this point I have already been falsely imprisoned and assaulted, but I figured it was probably easier talking to a cop for a few minutes than having to explain to someone later why I broke an old security guy's face for illegally detaining me.

Cop shows up in 2 minutes. Security guard immediately says "yeah caught him on suspicion of cannabis. He stinks of it. He was on campus and he ran from me when I told him to stop."

I laugh. Cop sees me laugh and asks me to step away from the security guard for a second so he can chat with me.

Cop: "Sorry about the hassle man. I know this isn't what you were expecting tonight."
Me: "Yeah"
Cop: "So were you doing drugs?"
Me: *silent*
Cop: "Oh." *Makes a face*. "Come on man. I'm not going to get you in trouble for a little pot. I just need to find out what happened to deal with this. I don't want to get you in trouble with that guy" *points at the guard*
Me: "Okay."

Cop: "So what were you doing on campus tonight?"
Me: *silent*
Cop: "You're not going to answer my questions? C'mon man it's not a big deal. It's easier to deal with a little pot than this is worth. I know the guard was a little crazy probably. I'm not with him."
Me: *silently smiles*

Cop: "Okay well what's your name?"
Me: "What's yours?"
Cop: *says his name*
Me: "Thank you."
Cop: "What's your name?"
Me: "Are you asking me to tell you my name or are you ordering it?"

Cop: "I just need to find out who you are so we can identify you and make sure you're not a criminal."
Me: "Are you asking me to tell you my name or are you ordering it?"

Cop: "I just need to double check for warrants, make sure you're not a danger to me, that kind of thing. There's nothing that can happen from it."
Me: "Are you asking me to tell you my name or are you ordering it?"

Cop: "LISTEN BUDDY. There's been two breakins on campus tonight and they've stolen some laptops and I need your name to make sure later on that those weren't involved with you. I don't care about ****ing pot."
Me: "Are you asking me to tell you my name or are you ordering it?"

Cop: "I am questioning you about a crime, so yes you are supposed to give me your name like a decent human being and get this over with. You are making my job difficult."
Me: "I'm sorry you feel that way. Does that mean I am under arrest and you are ordering me to give you my name?"

Cop: "It means I'm trying to do my job here and you're being incredibly difficult and it's making me think you have something to hide. Which makes me think you're a criminal."
Me: "I'm not trying to be uncooperative. I'm just trying to be assertive."

Cop: "Well you are being uncooperative. You're not answering my questions. So what's your name?"
Me: "Am I under arrest? Do I have to give you my name?"

Cop: "What are you military or something? You understand that if you're in the military you have to identify yourself to me or face disciplinary charges, right? You can't just come here and cause trouble off base."
Me: "I'm not military."

Cop: "Well you're acting really nervous. Your eyes are all darting and you won't answer a question. Makes me think we might have emotional problems here. You know, that means I can arrest you under the Mental Health Act, take you down to the station and FORCE you to identify yourself. For your safety and mine."

Me: *laughs*. "So are you arresting me? Am I free to go?"

Cop: "You're obstructing an officer and you're acting very suspiciously."
Me: "So am I under arrest?"

*Cop turns to the guard*
Cop: "Did you see him actually holding pot?"
Guard: "No."
Me: "Well I think that says everything we need to know."

*cop sighs*
Cop: "if I do my rounds here in 10 minutes am I going to see you back here again?"
Me: "Nope."
Cop: "Okay get the **** out of here."

*I walk home*

I never said you cooperate in all situations and all circumstances... but you did note that you make some sort of fuzzy calculus in your head and decide whether what you're saying is incriminating or not and try to settle innocuous situations.

Considering 90% of the people reading this thread don't understand that you're a police officer and can reasonably make that calculation you're just promulgating terrible advice for most people.

clearly you handled that wrong and you should have called an attorney