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His mistake was answering the officer's initial questions. You are under no obligation to talk to the police if questioned. If the officer has sufficient reason to believe you're guilty (such as witnessing a crime), he will simply arrest you on the spot and talking won't do any good.

Second, I see a subtle racial angle to this, and as a white person I too have been stopped by the police several times. White police are not singling out black people.

getting barraged by dovecotes but will not remove the post because I think it is still helpful, or at least encourage discussion about the matter

5 comments

> but his mistake was answering the officer's initial questions.

You know, a lot of Internet Tough Guys(tm) make this claim. Only those who have been stopped by cops randomly (I have, and I'm not white) will understand that this is nearly impossible. You are intimidated. You know that you have basically no rights; they'll just charge you with "obstruction of justice" or "disobeying a lawful order" and throw you into the justice( * ) system, where you'll end up wasting countless hours and dollars before "all charges are dropped". A white person, on the other hand, has a strong feeling of "I have rights". Most non-whites don't.

( * ) for some definition of "justice"

Yes, I would expect most officers to take this as a provocation. And the results can be even worse. Listen to this story for instance:

http://www.npr.org/2014/08/15/340419821/after-a-traffic-stop...

"So I ask them, 'Can I please see a warrant before you continue the search?' " Landau says. "And they grab me and began to hit me in the face. I could hear Addison in the background yelling, 'Stop! Leave him alone.'

A lot of Internet Tough Guys don't understand that if you're respectful and kind to the police, they'll more often than not go on their way without any type of escalation. Making their life difficult by refusing to talk to them at all or show any basic respect might work OK a few times, but really you're just going to cause problems. A better response than just repeating "Am I being detained?" is to filter your words carefully against some basic legal knowledge. Not necessarily foolproof, but most likely a better outcome than acting like a dick, as long as you're reasonably intelligent.

One day, in the first week of March, perhaps the 2nd or 3rd, I had driven my kids to school in the morning. While on the way out, I observed a cop issuing some sort of traffic citation to another parent on their way in. This was causing a major delay for hundreds of cars, due to this guy blocking the only way in and out with two stationary vehicles, one being the typical suburban full-time-parent kid-chauffeuring battle-tank SUV.

I may have allowed an annoyed look to appear on my face.

Seconds later, this same guy was pulling me over. The reason? My vehicle stickers expire February 28th. I renewed online late in the month (the shortest month, naturally), and the replacement stickers had not yet arrived in the mail. Fortunately for me, I had the printed receipt of my renewal transaction on the front passenger seat of my car. (The stickers arrived in the mail later that day.)

While walking away, the guy tells me, "Next time don't wait until the last minute to renew." ~Dude. I'm sorry that my timely production of exculpatory evidence precluded you from ratcheting one tick closer to your ticket quota.~ If you're going to be overzealous in enforcing the revenue laws, I don't need to hear any complaints about me paying the full amount and on time.

Next time, and all subsequent times, I will try the "not making your job easier" approach. You can't treat people like moustache-twirling villains half the time, and soulless cash machines the other half, and still expect them to respect you. I know he had an in-car computer that showed him my current registration and insurance status. He probably pulled me over because I gave him a dirty look for screwing up car line, and he wanted to be an extra-big dick about it.

The policing for profit has to stop. Whether its from dubious municipal court fines and fees or War on Drugs grants, the distorted flow of money is rewriting the relationship between police and public. The public is simultaneously employer to and customer of the police. That means that the cop has the burden of being professional and respectful at all times, even in the face of horrendous rudeness.

When a waiter or delivery driver gets stiffed on a tip, they suck it up, maybe post a pic to social media, and move on. When a cop gets frowned at, they swagger up, solicit some respeck for their authoritah, and maybe hurt someone while the cameras are inexplicably turned off. It should not matter whether or not the public gives or withholds respect. Those cops are on the clock and serving customers. If those customers are curt with front-line employees, perhaps it is because the company as a whole has been behaving as badly as AT&T or Comcast.

Just as you may get better results being calm and polite with your customer service rep while on the phone with those companies, you still might get a freakin' Ernestine, not caring about you, because the company is a [local] monopoly and it doesn't have to. In that case, you're better off sticking to your own script and recording everything.

>In that case, you're better off sticking to your own script and recording everything.

I'm not really sure how you came to this conclusion. You are correct about many things here, but the solution is not to become defiant; that will only result in, at a minimum, more hassle for you, like the officer writing an invalid citation anyway because he can, thus forcing you to either pay or waste an afternoon at traffic court to try to get it thrown out.

Some people are naturally more stubborn than others. I probably came to that conclusion due to my exceptionally mule-headed ancestry.

As a result, when I perceive that someone is working against my own interests, I will do anything within the bounds of my own ethics to trip them up, even to my own detriment. I want to waste lots of nights and weekends mailing documents in to traffic court, to try to get that revenue-generating municipal summons turned into a money-losing jury trial, with plenty of motions and discovery and appeals.

"Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison." --H.D. Thoreau

Under a government which funds itself by forcing citizens to pay more in order to be hassled less, choosing to accept the inconvenience might be considered an altruistic act....[0] But in my case, it would be purely for spite. From Hell's heart, I stab at thee, Captain Kirk.

If you want to let those bastards get away with their scam just because you can't stand to have a little manure tossed at you, go right ahead. I hope you enjoy smelling nice and not having any parts of your face broken when you go out with your fancy respectable folk.

The cops say "you can beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride." Well, Cave Johnson says, "I'm going to burn life's house down, with the lemons!" (He says what we're all thinking.) If you want to take me on a ride, don't forget that you'll have to drive the whole way. If you're intentionally inconveniencing me, as as informal punishment, remember this: "I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it." --G.B. Shaw.

[0] Poe's Law note: this is the inflection point between mostly-sincere and mostly-insincere. Determining which is which is left as an exercise for the reader.

This works fine with most non-police, but please realize that police have license to kill. Even if your shooting is unjustified, the bias is going to favor the police officer, and there are many things in the justice system that work in their favor, not the least of which being that many of their colleagues, associates, and friends will be responsible for their prosecution.

If a normal person shot you, they'd be arrested that night. For police, if they're ever arrested, it will probably many months later, after someone in the organization has decided that they don't like the officer involved in the shooting anyway--err, I mean, after Internal Affairs completes the investigation.

If you really believe that police--paid employees of the state--can murder people with impunity, why haven't you joined the rebellion yet? How many more straws would it take to break your back? Do you really want to live in a country where you believe you can be capriciously and arbitrarily murdered by the government without consequence?

> His mistake was answering the officer's initial questions. You are under no obligation to talk to the police if questioned.

I know that this is the common advice now, but I see it as a symptom of the serious problems the US has. The police is supposed to protect law and order. If you're not a crook, you shouldn't be afraid of talking to officers. When innocent people are so scared of interacting with law enforcement that they have to execute right to silence as a default, it means the situation is deteriorating into oppressive state.

  His mistake was answering the officer's initial questions.

There's a hint of blame-the-victim in that statement. he seemed to be voluntarily proactive (initially) to hasten him being on his way. Right or wrong, police have broad powers of detention even before/without arrest.

Luckily this guy didn't act like an idiotic internet tough guy, acted perfectly reasonable, so did the cops, and they all went on their ways. Just like things are supposed to and normally do happen every day.

You have the privilege of being a dick to a cop when you're white.

The moment they claim they were intimidated/frightened, then time and time again we've seen that any use of force becomes justified by police somehow. Just being black means they'll claim that feeling should things go wrong.

Dead right or dead wrong... is still dead.

>You have the privilege of being a dick to a cop when you're white.

Not really. Cops escalate against whites too and are often on a hair trigger. We just have to accept that the type of people our police forces attract as officers, with present combination of required qualifications and incentives, are most likely not going to be the most even-headed or rational members of society. If we really care about improving policing, we want to increase the incentives so that the job attracts the best and brightest instead of the washed-up football players that can't hack it at junior college.

I'm white and probably 40% of my interactions with police have been unpleasant just because those policemen felt like feeling important that day. You just have to grin and bear it, because doing otherwise risks escalation. Submission is the component most victims of escalation neglect.

The "racial divide" is less of a thing than it's made out to be; race is just one signal among many. One thing is for sure though, and that's that the media is very interested in provoking racial tension, rioting, and other "exciting" news events.

> You are under no obligation to talk to the police if questioned.

This is a great thing for white people to be aware of.

It's not just about race. I am an average white guy, and I'd still find it hard not to talk to the police. The police has guns, and more importantly, has the state behind them. So I'm intimidated by default (and it's partially how it's supposed to be - the police is supposed to commend respect). Refusing to answer a politely asked question feels like an escalation (and will likely be received as such). I'm a law-abiding citizen, we should be "in it together", me answering their questions should help us both in ensuring bad people get caught and good people stay safe. It's a very unhealthy situation if cooperating with police by default is seen as dangerous.

I realize this is a fully appropriate legal response but there's the not-too-subtle component of "who has the power in this particular conversation".

If I am approached by a person, any person, who has a holstered gun and an official looking outfit (or hell, just a holstered gun), the position I'm in is not one of "what am I legally allowed to do", it is one of "a person with a gun wants me to answer a question". A gun is danger signal to most people and the result is compliance regardless of rights. And if you have some place to be, most people figure it's going to take less time to sort out proving their non-involvement in whatever they're being questioned on than getting taken to the station for proper questioning with legal counsel.

On your "I'm a white person and have been stopped by the police several times", I didn't read that the author was particularly angry that the police stopped him because he was black. He was angry because they simply didn't believe him despite his collection of circumstantial evidence that he was not involved.

It was logical that he police questioned him -- he was in proximity and matched the description. Obviously the police weren't similarly grabbing white people off the street in this situation -- that would be idiotic -- the witness said the person was black. I don't think they (the cops) behaved particularly badly in this situation but I don't blame the guy for being completely shaken up.

Being accused, even mildly, by the police is an extremely stressful situation. When I was a kid (yes, I'm a white guy), I was in a parking lot of a strip mall in front of a large chain store that had closed 30 minutes prior to my arrival. My girlfriend and I had just gotten into an argument and were finishing it up in the car before heading to a restaurant next-door and I chose to park in front of the store because I was driving my new car (my first, paid for with my own savings) and didn't want to get a ding from a carelessly handled door on a neighboring vehicle. Twenty minutes into the conclusion of our argument, flashing lights appeared behind my vehicle.

I was questioned, my word was completely disregarded and my girlfriend was put in the awkward situation of having to prove she wasn't a prostitute I had paid for (they took our IDs and asked her what my street address was). Evidently she was too far out of my league for the police officer to believe she was actually my girlfriend! The experience was awful. My anxiety went through the roof (further giving the appearance of guilt) and it was about as embarrassing a situation as I could have found myself in.