@TomSrOfBoston I wanted to say just that but thought my post would get deleted for gasp getting ‘political’.
In fact, my son told the Chinese student just that.
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You might be surprised by the number of people that carry handguns in MA. Law enforcement needs to be cautious in every state.
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The thread isn’t at all about not ever talking to cops. It’s about educating yourself if you are thinking you may be arrested. It’s not adversarial. Its a way to educate yourself.
Watch the videos!
The premise is right in your miranda rights (if you get that far) “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law."
This doesn’t have anything to do with not reporting crimes or acting as a witness.
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You always can politely decline a search if there is no probable cause (like visible drugs or open alcohol containers). If they are really interested then they’ll have to get a search warrant.
Here’s a scenario from one video I watched–
Kids going to a concert get pulled over for speeding. Teen driver accepts ticket (stays polite and respectful).
- Cop asked to search the car. Driver respectfully declines. Cop says he’ll get search warrant. Driver says okay. They wait. Cop sits. They wait. Eventually the driver asks “Are we free to go?” Cop says yes. And they leave.
- Cop asks to search the car. Driver who is a straight arrow kid who knows his friends are good guys too says “sure” especially after the cop tells him it’ll be a lot faster than getting a search warrant and he’s sure they’d want it to make it easier for all involved. Unbeknownst to driver his friend in the back seat has a stash of drugs in his back pack. Game over.
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True, but the vetting process is much stricter here, along with the carry laws.
You’re 100% correct about the vetting, but law enforcement generally doesn’t worry about the rule followers.
I think everyone should be aware of what to do and what not to do if they are arrested.
That said, I live in an area where the police no longer come unless there is serious violence. And police response time in my city for a high priority crime is over 20 minutes. You don’t know how much you depend on the police until you call and no one shows up.
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Good points. But he was alone. Unless they planted something in the car he should have been ok. But still…
Where I live a friend’s kid had his bottle of prescribed Ritalin in his glovebox and got arrested for … either possession or DUI or something, I forget exactly, but it was a nightmare for the family. Ridiculous.
The state I live in has just made it illegal for cops to only stop someone for the air freshner hanging in the rearview window. They have to have a different reason to stop you like a real traffic infraction.
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@momofboiler1, I have had positive and negative interactions with police. For example, recently, I was returning home late at night from the train station after a few days in a different state. I was speeding. Eager to get home, very little traffic, my car has great handling and a very good engine and I was driving on the interstate. I was pulled over and the officer let me know I was speeding by a fair bit and that my registration was expired (by one day, while I was out of town). I was respectful, offered no excuses and he gave me a warning and told me to go to the state site and complete my registration online while he was waiting. So I avoided any fines. I recognize that my identity (a white man in his 60s driving a nice car) may have influenced treatment.
I think the problem that people who were saying that the police are not your friend have a few causes:
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When a crime has been committed, the incentives of the police are different than what one might think. In many cases, they want to make an arrest and in some cases do not appear to care if that arrest is unjust if they don’t think they can be contradicted by the evidence. We know of a young woman who was closing out her work at a shop when one of her co-workers came in to rob the store. The police accused her of being his accomplice – she was not but the co-worker implicated her to try to transfer the blame – and the police arrested her as well as the co-worker. For years, the charges against her lingered (but her mugshot was available on the web) and the DA eventually never brought charges (so she could never clear her name) likely because there was zero evidence of her involvement. I think the police got credit for the arrest (and solving the crime). The collateral damage to her was significant and there was never any kind of acknowledgement or apology. Not all police officers put hitting numbers against doing what is right, but I suspect a significant percentage do.
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The police are allowed to lie to get information or a confession. And they do, even when it is not important. I have observed this happen to someone I know.
At the same time, there are numerous stories about police officers going above and beyond to help people.
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Actually, no. Contrary to popular belief, Texas ranks about in the middle of the country in percent of citizens owning guns, far lower, per capita, than about 20 other states. I think cops likely know this and are appropriately cautious everywhere. Even in states with relatively low gun ownership, it is far higher among the general public than you think, with about 15% of the population legally registered as gun owners and heaven only knows how many more unregistered:
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/gun-ownership-by-state
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If the perpetrator implicated her, is it really the fault of the police that she was arrested? She was there at the time of the crime, and had the opportunity to assist the robber. It’s not up to the police to determine innocence or guilt. They’re working with probable cause and a “reasonableness” standard.
Additionally, are we certain that law enforcement officers have “numbers” to hit? I know my son doesn’t.
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My son is a police officer. He tells me that quotas are not allowed and he never has numbers to hit.
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It was reasonable to investigate. But, point taken. It was possible to construct a story that she might have had something to do with it and I think you are saying that that would be a legitimate basis for an arrest. Sadly, there was absolutely no evidence at all that she had anything to do with it (in large part because she had nothing to do with it). So my point is, they arrested a completely innocent person without doing any real investigation and the arrest just sat there for years because but there was never any prosecution because there was zero evidence. So, the officers who arrested her made her life miserable for years with zero evidence. That does not make me (or anyone who knows anything about the situation) feel good about police – which was the essence of my response to @momofboiler1.
I’m sure that some police departments do not have numbers to hit. I worked many many moons ago on a statistical analysis of bail in NYC and spent a fair amount of time in court houses and had the clear impression that the NY police had targets. No definitive evidence though. In addition, if there is a highly publicized crime, my impression is that there can be pressure to make an arrest.
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Re quotas: in August of 2022, I was double-parked on my very wide un-busy street unloading my rental car to my apartment building lobby 10 feet away. A police officer pulled up and wrote me a double-parking ticket. When I protested to her, she showed me her hand-held device, license plate scanned, ticket already written–no taking it back. No one can tell me that wasn’t a quota ticket.
I didn’t realize police officers still give out parking tickets. I can tell you that would be the absolute lowest priority for my LEO son.
Our town has a parking violation department, which is not part of the police department.
Our parking attendant is part of the Police Department, but they are not police officers. They only ticket downtown where parking can be tough to find.
Regular police officers can ticket people for things such as parking the wrong way on a street or blocking a driveway. But at least for the latter, you have to call and request such a thing. Or, is they are completely blocking your driveway, get them towed…
I’d much rather my son write tickets than wrestle MS-13 members in the middle of the night. 
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I now live in a quiet precinct, in a quiet sector. It was shortly after shift change. I guess those in charge wanted to keep everyone busy.
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