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Craig Weiler
Associate
Didn't watch the video, but I knew about this. We tend to trust people to understand us and trust what we say is true because this is how our lives normally work. But police don't operate that way. They can twist anything you say and make indecision or innocent contradictory statements look like signs of guilt. Best just to shut the heck up.
Boo boo
New
You got that right.
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Sciborg_S_Patel
It's interesting to see this is a trend:
Top Ten Reasons Why You Should Not Talk to the Police
REASON #1: Talking to the police CANNOT help you.
REASON #2: Even if you’re guilty, and you want to confess and get it off your chest, you still shouldn’t talk to the police.
REASON #3: Even if you are innocent, it’s easy to tell some little white lie in the course of a statement.
REASON #4: Even if you are innocent, and you only tell the truth, and you don’t tell any little white lies, it is possible to give the police some detail of information that can be used to convict you.
REASON #5: Even if you were innocent, and you only tell the truth, and you don’t tell any little white lies, and you don’t give the police any information that can be used against you to prove motive or opportunity, you still should not talk to the police because the possibility that the police might not recall your statement with 100% accuracy.
REASON #6: Even if you’re innocent, and you only tell the truth, and your entire statement is videotaped so that the police don’t have to rely on their memory, an innocent person can still make some innocent assumption about a fact or state some detail about the case they overheard on the way to the police station, and the police will assume that they only way the suspect could have known that fact or that detail was if he was, in fact, guilty.
REASON #7: Even if you’re innocent, and you only tell the truth in your statement, and you give the police no information that can be used against you, and the whole statement is videotaped, a suspect’s answers can still be used against him if the police (through no fault of their own) have any evidence that any of the suspect’s statements are false (even if they are really true).
REASON #8: The police do not have authority to make deals or grant a suspect leniency in exchange for getting as statement.
REASON #9: Even if a suspect is guilty, and wants to confess, there may be mitigating factors which justify a lesser charge.
REASON #10: Even for a completely honest and innocent person, it is difficult to tell the same story twice in exactly the same way.
Top Ten Reasons Why You Should Not Talk to the Police
REASON #1: Talking to the police CANNOT help you.
REASON #2: Even if you’re guilty, and you want to confess and get it off your chest, you still shouldn’t talk to the police.
REASON #3: Even if you are innocent, it’s easy to tell some little white lie in the course of a statement.
REASON #4: Even if you are innocent, and you only tell the truth, and you don’t tell any little white lies, it is possible to give the police some detail of information that can be used to convict you.
REASON #5: Even if you were innocent, and you only tell the truth, and you don’t tell any little white lies, and you don’t give the police any information that can be used against you to prove motive or opportunity, you still should not talk to the police because the possibility that the police might not recall your statement with 100% accuracy.
REASON #6: Even if you’re innocent, and you only tell the truth, and your entire statement is videotaped so that the police don’t have to rely on their memory, an innocent person can still make some innocent assumption about a fact or state some detail about the case they overheard on the way to the police station, and the police will assume that they only way the suspect could have known that fact or that detail was if he was, in fact, guilty.
REASON #7: Even if you’re innocent, and you only tell the truth in your statement, and you give the police no information that can be used against you, and the whole statement is videotaped, a suspect’s answers can still be used against him if the police (through no fault of their own) have any evidence that any of the suspect’s statements are false (even if they are really true).
REASON #8: The police do not have authority to make deals or grant a suspect leniency in exchange for getting as statement.
REASON #9: Even if a suspect is guilty, and wants to confess, there may be mitigating factors which justify a lesser charge.
REASON #10: Even for a completely honest and innocent person, it is difficult to tell the same story twice in exactly the same way.
Trancestate
Member
"Where the people fear the government you have tyranny. Where the government fears the people you have liberty." -- John Basil Barnhill, 1914
Doug
Doug
Inb4 all posters in this thread get arrested for disobedience.
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Sciborg_S_Patel
Jim_Smith
New
People who think every problem should solved with a new law should be aware that every law is an opportunity for the police to harass you and for the government to put you in jail if some bureaucrat decides he doesn't like you. The problem is worse than just false arrest because with some police officers, if you look at them the wrong way, if you try to stand up for your rights, or for no reason at all, they tackle you for "resisting arrest" and that can be fatal as it was for Eric Garner. One reason for the Ferguson riots is the anger caused by police harassing the people who live in that town.
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2014/08/ferguson-and-the-debtors-prison.html
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2014/08/ferguson-and-the-debtors-prison.html
"Of course, if you are arrested and jailed you will probably lose your job and perhaps also your apartment–all because of a speeding ticket."
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Super Sexy
New
Trancestate
Member
Doug
My question would be what are the stats on police who've been killed in that period? My guess would be that if a decent amount of police are getting killed, most of the rest will start getting nervous and jerky while on the job, leading to these shootings that make national news. Meanwhile, deaths of police officers probably don't get past local news.
The thing I think some people are forgetting these days are that police are people too, and most of the blame for the things people dislike about the police nowadays are due to politicians and their "activities". The rest is due to officers who are either overzealous or overly anxious.
The thing I think some people are forgetting these days are that police are people too, and most of the blame for the things people dislike about the police nowadays are due to politicians and their "activities". The rest is due to officers who are either overzealous or overly anxious.
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Sciborg_S_Patel
I don't think every cop is a corrupt asshole, but the police-industrial complex is a mess:
Protesters in Berkeley/Oakland outed two undercover cops who were reportedly trying to instigate looting among the crowd. Instead of backing off and calling it a day, one of the cops pulled out his baton and then his gun, started pointing it at protesters and making arrests.
Two high-ranking Hollywood cops were busted deleting evidence about them and their friends from their Internal Affairs files. No charges filed but they were fined $500 apiece.
Police shoot and kill a man during a late night raid to his house for drugs. No drugs found, the attorney for the wife of the murdered American citizen says evidence shows he was shot in the back and the side of the head while laying on the ground.
Retired NYPD detective claims he was racially profiled when he was attacked by fellow officers.
In September police took a 17-year-old black kid out of school on suspicion of armed robbery. Despite no evidence tying the kid to the crime and him not even fitting the description of the suspect, he was held for a month in jail and finally released when the judge looked at the case. Turned out the "victim" likely didn't want to get in trouble for coming home late after curfew so made up the story of getting robbed.
Protesters in Berkeley/Oakland outed two undercover cops who were reportedly trying to instigate looting among the crowd. Instead of backing off and calling it a day, one of the cops pulled out his baton and then his gun, started pointing it at protesters and making arrests.
Two high-ranking Hollywood cops were busted deleting evidence about them and their friends from their Internal Affairs files. No charges filed but they were fined $500 apiece.
Police shoot and kill a man during a late night raid to his house for drugs. No drugs found, the attorney for the wife of the murdered American citizen says evidence shows he was shot in the back and the side of the head while laying on the ground.
Retired NYPD detective claims he was racially profiled when he was attacked by fellow officers.
In September police took a 17-year-old black kid out of school on suspicion of armed robbery. Despite no evidence tying the kid to the crime and him not even fitting the description of the suspect, he was held for a month in jail and finally released when the judge looked at the case. Turned out the "victim" likely didn't want to get in trouble for coming home late after curfew so made up the story of getting robbed.
Super Sexy
New
The police-industrial complex :)
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Sciborg_S_Patel
Trancestate
Member
A must-read article from The Economist about the militarization of American police forces, and the resultant mayhem and carnage:
http://www.economist.com/news/unite...-have-become-too-militarised-cops-or-soldiers
Cops or soldiers?
America’s police have become too militarised
It is easy to see why the police like to be better armed than the people they have to arrest. They risk their lives every day, and are understandably keen to get home in one piece. A big display of force can make a suspect think twice about pulling a gun. “An awful lot of SWAT tactics are focused on forcing the suspect to surrender,” says Bill Bratton, New York’s police chief.
But civil libertarians such as Radley Balko, the author of “Rise of the Warrior Cop”, fret that the American police are becoming too much like soldiers. Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams (ie, paramilitary police units) were first formed to deal with violent civil unrest and life-threatening situations: shoot-outs, rescuing hostages, serving high-risk warrants and entering barricaded buildings, for instance. Their mission has crept.
Peter Kraska, a professor at Eastern Kentucky University’s School of Justice Studies, estimates that SWAT teams were deployed about 3,000 times in 1980 but are now used around 50,000 times a year. Some cities use them for routine patrols in high-crime areas. Baltimore and Dallas have used them to break up poker games. In 2010 New Haven, Connecticut sent a SWAT team to a bar suspected of serving under-age drinkers. That same year heavily-armed police raided barber shops around Orlando, Florida; they said they were hunting for guns and drugs but ended up arresting 34 people for “barbering without a licence”. Maricopa County, Arizona sent a SWAT team into the living room of Jesus Llovera, who was suspected of organising cockfights. Police rolled a tank into Mr Llovera’s yard and killed more than 100 of his birds, as well as his dog. According to Mr Kraska, most SWAT deployments are not in response to violent, life-threatening crimes, but to serve drug-related warrants in private homes.
<snip>
Often these no-knock raids take place at night, accompanied by “flash-bang” grenades designed temporarily to blind, deafen and confuse their targets. They can go horribly wrong: Mr Balko has found more than 50 examples of innocent people who have died as a result of botched SWAT raids. Officers can get jumpy and shoot unnecessarily, or accidentally. In 2011 Eurie Stamps, the stepfather of a suspected drug-dealer but himself suspected of no crimes, was killed while lying face-down on the floor when a SWAT-team officer reportedly tripped, causing his gun to discharge.
Householders, on hearing the door being smashed down, sometimes reach for their own guns. In 2006 Kathryn Johnston, a 92-year-old woman in Atlanta, mistook the police for robbers and fired a shot from an old pistol. Police shot her five times, killing her. After the shooting they planted marijuana in her home. It later emerged that they had falsified the information used to obtain their no-knock warrant.
<snip>
Because of a legal quirk, SWAT raids can be profitable. Rules on civil asset-forfeiture allow the police to seize anything which they can plausibly claim was the proceeds of a crime. Crucially, the property-owner need not be convicted of that crime. If the police find drugs in his house, they can take his cash and possibly the house, too. He must sue to get them back.
Many police departments now depend on forfeiture for a fat chunk of their budgets. In 1986, its first year of operation, the federal Asset Forfeiture Fund held $93.7m. By 2012, that and the related Seized Asset Deposit Fund held nearly $6 billion.
Mr Balko contends that these forfeiture laws are “unfair on a very basic level”. They “disproportionately affect low-income people” and provide a perverse incentive for police to focus on drug-related crimes, which “come with a potential kickback to the police department”, rather than rape and murder investigations, which do not. They also provide an incentive to arrest suspected drug-dealers inside their houses, which can be seized, and to bust stash houses after most of their drugs have been sold, when police can seize the cash.
Doug
http://www.economist.com/news/unite...-have-become-too-militarised-cops-or-soldiers
Cops or soldiers?
America’s police have become too militarised
It is easy to see why the police like to be better armed than the people they have to arrest. They risk their lives every day, and are understandably keen to get home in one piece. A big display of force can make a suspect think twice about pulling a gun. “An awful lot of SWAT tactics are focused on forcing the suspect to surrender,” says Bill Bratton, New York’s police chief.
But civil libertarians such as Radley Balko, the author of “Rise of the Warrior Cop”, fret that the American police are becoming too much like soldiers. Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams (ie, paramilitary police units) were first formed to deal with violent civil unrest and life-threatening situations: shoot-outs, rescuing hostages, serving high-risk warrants and entering barricaded buildings, for instance. Their mission has crept.
Peter Kraska, a professor at Eastern Kentucky University’s School of Justice Studies, estimates that SWAT teams were deployed about 3,000 times in 1980 but are now used around 50,000 times a year. Some cities use them for routine patrols in high-crime areas. Baltimore and Dallas have used them to break up poker games. In 2010 New Haven, Connecticut sent a SWAT team to a bar suspected of serving under-age drinkers. That same year heavily-armed police raided barber shops around Orlando, Florida; they said they were hunting for guns and drugs but ended up arresting 34 people for “barbering without a licence”. Maricopa County, Arizona sent a SWAT team into the living room of Jesus Llovera, who was suspected of organising cockfights. Police rolled a tank into Mr Llovera’s yard and killed more than 100 of his birds, as well as his dog. According to Mr Kraska, most SWAT deployments are not in response to violent, life-threatening crimes, but to serve drug-related warrants in private homes.
<snip>
Often these no-knock raids take place at night, accompanied by “flash-bang” grenades designed temporarily to blind, deafen and confuse their targets. They can go horribly wrong: Mr Balko has found more than 50 examples of innocent people who have died as a result of botched SWAT raids. Officers can get jumpy and shoot unnecessarily, or accidentally. In 2011 Eurie Stamps, the stepfather of a suspected drug-dealer but himself suspected of no crimes, was killed while lying face-down on the floor when a SWAT-team officer reportedly tripped, causing his gun to discharge.
Householders, on hearing the door being smashed down, sometimes reach for their own guns. In 2006 Kathryn Johnston, a 92-year-old woman in Atlanta, mistook the police for robbers and fired a shot from an old pistol. Police shot her five times, killing her. After the shooting they planted marijuana in her home. It later emerged that they had falsified the information used to obtain their no-knock warrant.
<snip>
Because of a legal quirk, SWAT raids can be profitable. Rules on civil asset-forfeiture allow the police to seize anything which they can plausibly claim was the proceeds of a crime. Crucially, the property-owner need not be convicted of that crime. If the police find drugs in his house, they can take his cash and possibly the house, too. He must sue to get them back.
Many police departments now depend on forfeiture for a fat chunk of their budgets. In 1986, its first year of operation, the federal Asset Forfeiture Fund held $93.7m. By 2012, that and the related Seized Asset Deposit Fund held nearly $6 billion.
Mr Balko contends that these forfeiture laws are “unfair on a very basic level”. They “disproportionately affect low-income people” and provide a perverse incentive for police to focus on drug-related crimes, which “come with a potential kickback to the police department”, rather than rape and murder investigations, which do not. They also provide an incentive to arrest suspected drug-dealers inside their houses, which can be seized, and to bust stash houses after most of their drugs have been sold, when police can seize the cash.
Doug
Trancestate
Member
Doppelgänger
New
I have Balko's book! I have had it for a long time but haven't got to it yet. (So many books and Internet, so little time....) I just got James Risen's book "Pay Any Price", and was thinking of starting that one next.