[karajorma]

That's basically the point I made SG. It's all very well telling people not to talk to the police but the result is that law and order break down pretty quickly. The police can not do their job on their own.

[Nemesis6]

Very long post

My only experience with the law regarding these things is that police generally need a warrant to enter a house, say for example if they're investigating a noise complaint, light stuff like that. If I'm not mistaken here, and I'm pretty sure I'm not, if they knock on your door, and you greet them outside, while shutting the door behind you, you close virtually any possible hole they can use to gain entry without a warrant, like the plain sight rule, and if all they have is a petty complaint from a neighbor, they wouldn't have any legal reason to enter, would they? I'm well aware of the stuff you mentioned about evidence obtained illegally possibly being dismissed in court if they try it, but it's not above police officers to manufacture, plant, and manipulate evidence. Black people with cocaine on their noses and guns in their cold, dead hands would tell you all about that if they could.

In light of what you've said about searches, I'm curious as to your perspective on the video posted, and on these two situations:
1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyokKFIecIo
2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCVnMDy_7nM

Karajorma, I can see where you're coming from with that, but do you really believe that putting this nugget of gold in the heads of all people would cause a break down in society? I think that's silly beyond all belief. As the professor in the video says - The government has thousands of different ways to convict people, and you mean to tell me that the only defense the accused has against these thousands of crimes he could be convicted of, is unfair and shouldn't be used because others could use it? If that caused law and order to break down, the police aren't earning their pay in my opinion. I think the only impact would be police having to work harder, and that's a good thing, because they get paid for that. Let's view this from another angle: What about the innocent people who, had they utilized this defense, wouldn't have been falsely imprisoned or executed today? Is that outweighed by the fact that more criminals have been caught and fried/incarcerated than innocent people? Personally, I don't rationalize stuff like that - Putting an innocent person in jail is not worth 1000 criminals in jail, because the end doesn't justify the means, namely that of making people witnesses against themselves. If you really stand by this, would you support giving criminals bad lawyers to maintain a high conviction rate?

[NGTM-1R]

Well, they can also charge you with resisting arrest when they didn't have a reason to arrest you in the first place. That doesn't strike you as ****ed up?

Not in the slightest. In attempting to resist the officers of the law you are resisting the law itself. Resistence against the law must carry some form of penalty. Perjury is a crime for the same reasons; obstructing the natural course of the law.

[Nemesis6]

Not in the slightest. In attempting to resist the officers of the law you are resisting the law itself. Resistence against the law must carry some form of penalty. Perjury is a crime for the same reasons; obstructing the natural course of the law.

Granted, you should never resist arrest physically, but I think he's referring more to the fact how they can pull a minor thing out of their ass in order to pin something more serious on you. Taking that example a bit further, imagine shouting, "he's got a gun", and when you run in panic, they shoot you in the back on the grounds that you were "resisting arrest" or "behaving erratic". There was a story about a man in America a while back, he was at a pizza parlor, and the owner thought he was behaving odd, so he called the police, who sent a SWAT unit smashing through the door. The man's reaction to this was diving for cover because he didn't know they were after him. Would it be fair to charge him with obstructing justice, disturbing the peace, and resisting arrest?

[karajorma]

Shooting a fleeing man in the back gets the policeman fired if not facing criminal charges usually. So stop making **** up.

[Nemesis6]

Shooting a fleeing man in the back gets the policeman fired if not facing criminal charges usually. So stop making **** up.

You're right, stupid example. The point is, police are masters at manipulating people into doing things. For example, just hit the suspect or otherwise assault them physically, and then you can stick at least a dozen charges on them when they react. There's a legal word for this, but I can't remember it. It's when police actually cause someone to commit a crime. Resisting arrest, erratic behavior, assaulting an officer... you'd be amazed how many stupid things an otherwise logical person is capable of if a policeman attacks them for no reason.

[General Battuta]

Well, they can also charge you with resisting arrest when they didn't have a reason to arrest you in the first place. That doesn't strike you as ****ed up?

Not in the slightest. In attempting to resist the officers of the law you are resisting the law itself. Resistence against the law must carry some form of penalty. Perjury is a crime for the same reasons; obstructing the natural course of the law.

Oh hell no. Police in too many societies go way too far. Sometimes the things they're doing are just wrong.

At some point the law stops being right.

[Mars]

In society, resisting the law MUST have some form of penalty. There's no other way it could work, unless you're working with an enlightened population or something.

[Mika]

"Why you should never talk to the police"

That's a pretty bold statement, considering it covers the whole world.

There are places where general population will say otherwise. Like here, for example. It is crazy, foreigners are angry to police because they don't accept bribes.

[Woolie Wool]

Police robots FTW!



Err, no, wait......

Point being:
As long as we have humans, with all the group behaviour mechanisms that humans have doing the police work, especially with extremely obvious signs segregating "us" and "them", you will get some form of Blue Code.

Designing a perfectly unbiased system to arbitrate disputes is impossible. Not difficult, impossible, given our current understanding of ourselves.

I had the idea of a completely separate government branch devoted entirely to monitoring police behavior and investigating and prosecuting possible police misdeeds. Instead of Internal Affairs, you have an independent agency on a different payroll making sure that the police do not step out of line.

When you've set up a way to monitor somebody, it's a good idea to take the watchers from a different group than the watched to prevent a conflict of interest. A member of this hypothetical "Police Misconduct Prevention Agency" would have no reason not to come down like a ton of bricks if he knew a cop did something wrong.

Although eventually the layers of oversight have to stop somewhere and you still have a big corruption risk from whoever's on top.

My county has a horrible Sheriff's Department.  Part of that can be blamed on the former Sheriff, Michael Carona (recently convicted in federal court for witness tampering), and probably part of it on the fact deputies spend six months in jail duties before they can go out on the streets.  I'm guessing those six months color their perceptions somewhat.

You bet it does. If the documentaries I've watched are anything to go by, prison guards are callous, cruel, vicious people, and those that aren't quickly become so after a few months on the job in some of the most cutthroat, ruthless places in the world. At least in America, prisons usually don't rehabilitate--rather, they turn situational offenders and rookie guards looking to do a "civic duty" into hardened criminals and violent thugs.

[Bob-san]

To summarize that entire lesson (which I didn't realize the extent of); anything you say CAN and MIGHT be misconstrued against you in a court of law. To actually talk about a crime is, in many ways, a crime in and of itself. As was well stated, saying NOTHING is better in 99.99995% of cases. Now, according to current law, you are allowed to refuse to answer questions. While somewhat suspicious, it demands that you are excluded from the investigation. Unless granted immunity, of course, SOMETHING you say can be misconstrued or is not completely honest or truthful, for whatever reason. Hell, saying "I have a 3.9 GPA" can be incorrect if your GPA is, in fact, 3.87. I'm in total agreement; don't talk to the police except, perhaps, when you are only a witness (for example; a man who appeared drunk and wore a red shirt smashed his beer glass into another man's face). In violent crimes and questions of possession, it's best to remain silent and let the physical evidence tell the story.

To be honest, it's not a real matter of police misdeed. It's more or less jumpy prosecutors and stupid defendants who allow this bull**** to go through.

[MP-Ryan]

Very long post

My only experience with the law regarding these things is that police generally need a warrant to enter a house, say for example if they're investigating a noise complaint, light stuff like that. If I'm not mistaken here, and I'm pretty sure I'm not, if they knock on your door, and you greet them outside, while shutting the door behind you, you close virtually any possible hole they can use to gain entry without a warrant, like the plain sight rule, and if all they have is a petty complaint from a neighbor, they wouldn't have any legal reason to enter, would they?

The answer is:  it depends.  In the situation you described (noise complaint from a neighbour), no.  If that noise complaint was indicating that they heard shouted threats or sounds of violence, and coupled with how a person responded to the door (say you refused to allow officers to speak to other persons in the home, more yelling could be hear, there was evidence of violence in the person's appearance), an officer may well have reasonable grounds to enter the dwelling based on exigent circumstances.  But in that scenario, it's the judge who ultimately decides if it was reasonable AFTER the fact, potentially excluding any evidence obtained.

I'm well aware of the stuff you mentioned about evidence obtained illegally possibly being dismissed in court if they try it, but it's not above police officers to manufacture, plant, and manipulate evidence. Black people with cocaine on their noses and guns in their cold, dead hands would tell you all about that if they could.

It's well beyond the absolute majority of officers of the law to do what you've described; not only is it ethically and morally wrong, it's totally illegal and makes them subject to loss of job, loss of pension, a criminal record, and imprisonment.  Are there some willing to take those steps?  Yes.  Have their been other officers who looked the other way and/or covered for them because they believed the ends justified the means?  Yes.  Are these individuals representative of all law enforcement?  Absolutely not.  Standards of enforcement differ from department to department, and legal precedent is constantly evolving.  What smaller departments once got away with is no longer possible, and law enforcement in general is experiencing a movement toward education and professionalization.

In light of what you've said about searches, I'm curious as to your perspective on the video posted, and on these two situations:
1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyokKFIecIo
2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCVnMDy_7nM

Aside from some over-dramatization, there's nothing wrong with the responses given by either person.  Both established that the know and intend to abide by their legal rights.  Even if the officer doesn't like that, there is nothing they can do about it short of an arrest or detention based on reasonable grounds of belief that an offense has occurred.  And if they don't have the grounds, they can't arrest or detain - and before you say "some officers do it anyway," those officers that might be tempted risk criminal prosecution themselves.

[MP-Ryan]

You're right, stupid example. The point is, police are masters at manipulating people into doing things. For example, just hit the suspect or otherwise assault them physically, and then you can stick at least a dozen charges on them when they react. There's a legal word for this, but I can't remember it. It's when police actually cause someone to commit a crime.

Entrapment.  But what you've described isn't entrapment.  See below:

if a policeman attacks them for no reason.

From the Criminal Code (Canada):

Excessive force
26. Every one who is authorized by law to use force is criminally responsible for any excess thereof according to the nature and quality of the act that constitutes the excess.

If an officer uses a level of force to subdue a subject beyond what is reasonably required, the officer is criminally responsible for the excess use of force.  That means if an officer applies force (in any medium) beyond the level reasonably required, as decided by the judge, they are guilty of:

Assault
265. (1) A person commits an assault when
(a) without the consent of another person, he applies force intentionally to that other person, directly or indirectly;
(b) he attempts or threatens, by an act or a gesture, to apply force to another person, if he has, or causes that other person to believe on reasonable grounds that he has, present ability to effect his purpose; or
(c) while openly wearing or carrying a weapon or an imitation thereof, he accosts or impedes another person or begs.

Application

(2) This section applies to all forms of assault, including sexual assault, sexual assault with a weapon, threats to a third party or causing bodily harm and aggravated sexual assault.

Consent

(3) For the purposes of this section, no consent is obtained where the complainant submits or does not resist by reason of
(a) the application of force to the complainant or to a person other than the complainant;
(b) threats or fear of the application of force to the complainant or to a person other than the complainant;
(c) fraud; or
(d) the exercise of authority.

[Bob-san]

The issue in excessive force is a definition of what would be excessive and what would not be.

A burglar breaks into your home. Hearing noise and knowing it's unlikely to be friends or family, you panic, quickly load two rounds of buckshot into your double-barreled shotgun kept in your closet. Rushing out into your den, you face a burglar, faced away shuffling through your cabinet with a knife on the desk.

Would a shot to the head be too much? To the torso? What if that there was damage to a vital organ and they bled to death? What if it didn't but they were left infertile? What if it permanently disabled them? What if it was a misunderstanding? Would a blunt weapon have worked in stead of a gun? Was a blunt weapon available? Was a weapon even required?

And that's in a more-or-less clear cut type of case where there are various responses. Call the cops and hope he doesn't hurt you. Try fighting him barehanded. Try a blunt weapon, such as a baseball bat. Try a sharp weapon, such as a blade. Try a firearm. The levels of response and the degrees of force are not codified. In a case like this, you'd want to grab your attorney and let the police investigate.

Alternatively, there'd be the question of firearm legality and once more question of lethal response being justified. Luckily or not, a corpse can only tell part of a story. Much of the rest can be told by physical evidence; damage to locks or the door, state of the documents, fingerprints or biological matter (or waste), and quite a few other pieces of evidence. Not quite worthy of CSI on TV, but a story none the less. Of course, if you've been burglarized, you'd want to make statements to the police. It's a lot easier for a "victim"'s word to be taken. Alternatively, there have been cases where a burglar is shot or otherwise injured on property and is able to sue for damages. That includes damage they did themselves; punching out a window like a complete moron? Broken hand with glass fragments? Yeah, sue the owner & victim.

[MP-Ryan]

*snip*

What, in that rambling mess, actually addressed a point?  I was responding to Nemesis' assertion that an officer can use unreasonable force on a person in order to elicit a response that the officer can then arrest the person for.  None of what you've said even connects to that discussion.  You're talking about defence of the person or property (which are covered in different sections of the CC), which is completely unrelated to the discussion at hand.

RIF.

[Scotty]

A burglar breaks into your home. Hearing noise and knowing it's unlikely to be friends or family, you panic, quickly load two rounds of buckshot into your double-barreled shotgun kept in your closet. Rushing out into your den, you face a burglar, faced away shuffling through your cabinet with a knife on the desk.

Breaking and Entering, Burglary, and the guy has a weapon?  He gets one warning.  If he doesn't take it, or moves to the knife, he gets two shots.  Simple as that.

[Nuclear1]

Well looks like we're going to have a Castle law discussion.

In most states, you have the right to use up to deadly force to defend your home, as long as you feel the person breaking in has the capability or intention to cause harm to you or other residents.

Scotty's right in his analysis there.  Just shuffling through your things, the burglar poses no physical threat to you--you pose more danger to him.  Your best bet is to keep him away from the knife on the table and involve the police.  Should the burglar go for the knife or any other weapon, and you believe he's capable of harming you with it, you're legally able to kill or incapacitate him.

This changes in some places where you have a duty to retreat from the danger before you can use deadly force. 

 

[Aardwolf]

I conveniently had seen this before it was posted here...  I ask you (all the various people arguing here):

Did you actually watched the video? And I mean all of it. Because I find it hard to believe anyone who'd watched the entire video would be arguing against the case it makes.

Also, I think maybe the thread title (what with the word 'never' right there) is not quite in tune with the message of the video...

[Nemesis6]

The evidence just keeps rolling in. There was a documentary on local TV here about a case in next-door Sweden, where 12 innocent people -- Children at the time 14 to 15-year-olds -- Who were held in isolation and interrogated for days regarding a series of arson attacks. Some had their lives ruined after the false accusations, courtesy of the police whom we should respect, were published. Here's the sweet part for all you people who talk about how if no-one talked to the police, we wouldn't have functional societies - 8 of the 12 confessed, after days of isolation and interrogation, to a crime they didn't commit. Police had NO evidence, but what the carefully-constructed police nazi routine achieved, as was explained, was gradual bending on their will to fight back. You start by playing off of all the discomfort you impose on the victim suspect -- Strip them of their own clothes, keep them in the "interview" room for hours on end, lying to them, manipulating them, and keeping them talking in order to bolster your weak case. Then comes the point at which they stop caring whether they're innocent or not, and at that point, it's easy to convince them that if they confess, they'll get to go home. But honestly, six hours with Officer McFriendly just fly by, don't they? Now, some were removed from their parents and some placed in orphanages, foster care, etc, with absolutely no contact allowed to either their family, a lawyer or anything, neither during the interrogation, or afterwards. None of this came before a trial, by the way.

The logic behind trusting/talking to the police reminds me of battered wife syndrome. No, I shouldn't leave him... He beats me because he loves me and that's his duty as a husband to ensure that our relationship works, so I must have done something to make him do it. Oh, that was so my fault -- I should know better than to confuse salt and pepper, no wonder he rubbed salt in my face and beat me.

No, I have to trust the police, there must be a reason they treat my like this, even though I'm not a criminal and have never been in trouble with the law. It was because I didn't want to be a witness against myself -- Yeah, that must be it. By me not incriminating myself, they were well within their right beat me and cover up their crime. Besides, if they didn't do that, our societies would fall apart.

The argument simplified, and in German if you get the reference: Ordnung muss sein!. Or in English: There must be order!
And the police are order. One person mentioned that I had made up my mind, and that's absolutely right and I'm glad I did - Because I ended at the right decision. The issue of talking to the police or not kind of became intertwined with something else on my part in a few of my earlier posts here, and that's the fact that I hate police. Whenever I see them, I will take detours around them because I know what they're like. Whenever I see their cars, I become anxious, expecting them to come out and in some way intimidate and harass me. All of these fears are reinforced by the fact that they have free reign to do any of these things, and I have no legal recourse. This is rob me of some respect from you guys, but I have a hard time distinguish between the uniform and the person. Going even further here, it's like Nazis claiming that they were just following orders, except the police can say no, and afterwards report the entire thing and, if they have any integrity and moral standards, leave the force in disgust. But in the real world, that's not how it works, and that's why I'm amazed at Ryan's unwavering confidence in such utopian principles like a violent police officer actually being punished. Who would tell? The witness, yeah, but seriously, if a victim of police brutality was to take an officer to court, and it was his word against the officer's, we all know what would happen - The policemen are viewed as "expert" witnesses, and all that would be needed would be to get his corrupt partner to deny it, and then it's the victim's word against two "experts" within their field.

There's a reason that the meme about reporting police crimes won't do any good, because it's largely true.

[Blue Lion]

Wow, Nazis now. We'll I'm convinced.

It's very simple. The police have never done anything wrong to me and the odds of the police driving up to my house and arresting me for murder are probably exceedingly low. So there is no reason to not talk to them.