EVERY time I'm in a conversation where sharing this video is apt...I lose 30 minutes of billable time. I simply cannot share it without also watching it again.
I do stop after the good prof is done, because I've already seen the cop's segment. The prof's segment is Solid Gold.
(My son lives in VA Beach about 5 minutes from Regent University, and I drive by it all the time when I visit him and his family. Can't help but think of Prof. Duane every time!)
The justice system isn't really about justice, right and wrong, it's always about winning and losing. The cops are mostly decent people, but they have a job to do and their boss demands wins. Your loss becomes their win. We want them to be hard on real criminals, but fair and balanced with us. The problem is we give them the power to arrest or kill criminals and us, if they consider it a win. Power corrupts, always, so they tend to become more willing to exercise their power to increase their wins.
Maintaining the right balance requires some participation on our part (us being the good guys). As the cop in the video says, everyone breaks laws. Not our fault, usually, but the byzantine law structure makes it likely. The trick is to not act like a criminal. The path to prison has several steps, beginning with the first "interview" with the cop. Act normal, you might not get arrested. Act like a criminal, expect to get treated like one. Just remember the cop has different objectives than you do, and don't get too chatty. He's not your friend. If he's interviewing you, you're either a witness or a suspect. Telling them what you saw makes you a witness. Discussing what you did makes you suspect. Don't do that.
You should read "Deadly Force" (Ayoob) or "The Law of Self Defense" (Branca) for a more comprehensive look at the dynamics of police interactions. They say guilty people shouldn't talk to police, and crazy people shouldn't talk to police, but everyone else can be more effective with controlled interaction. Police are our employees, and need good supervision. Leaving any employee to their own devices invites bad outcomes.
Controlled interaction? Controlled by whom, the guy well-trained in those interactions, or the neophyte who rarely if ever is in the situation?
As Prof. Duane says in the video (paraphrased), "Anything you would say now you can say later, with your attorney by your side. Why rush it?" That sounds like a good approach.
As for the police being our employees, that's sophistry. No way ANY cop is going to be dictated to or allow himself to be "supervised" by a civilian "employer".
Certainly. There's also a difference beteween inexperience and willful ignorance. Police encounters are a rare occurrence for most people, so it's not worth studying much. But like many things we're unprepared for, learning to get prepared is sometimes beneficial, if not for the unlikely eventuality, then at least for the confidence we can prevail of the worst happens. Preparation improves outcomes. The benefit of book smarts is we get the benefit of others' street smarts without the effort or risk. Ayoob and Branca have a lot of street smarts. Worth studying.
And that sounds great in theory, but in reality I'm not going to take the chance. Even mainstream shows like DATELINE reveal how cops will twist words (or even silence!) to convince themselves they have the right guy.
Those bad cops also twist words not spoken. When interviewed by police you're either a suspect or a witness. Acting like a suspect guarantees harsher action. We're only vulnerable if we choose to be. Or if we're guilty.
How you "not speak" can dictate whether you're acting like a suspect, or not acting like a suspect but just as someone who chooses to wait for his attorney to be present. Not unlike how you behave when you're pulled over for speeding goes a long way toward whether you get a ticket. (To wit: I was going 63 in a 35, passing a guy, as we approached the Hooksett NH toll booth from less than a 1/4 mile away, in the rain, at night. I pulled over on the other side of the toll booth, almost before the cop had time to make his u-turn to come get me. I was not ticketed.
HOW you do something is as important as WHAT you do.)
And harsher action at the time you *don't* speak - in the moment, without your attorney present - is preferable to the risk of harsher action *because* you spoke and thus gave the government something to twist into a conviction at your trial.
It also might give you grounds for a nice lawsuit settlement...
Most people don't consider fishing for lawsuits to be good use if their time. Cops have a lot of advantages civilians don't have. Defying them only works if they allow it. They allow it if we're not considered worth their time. Every circumstance is unique, and adapting correctly determines our success.
Supporting the police also supports society. Defying them leads to anarchy or tyranny. Some of us are more prepared than others for either outcome, but prefer to keep things working like they are.
You will be arrested, that was a given because the police smelled the booze, but you haven't given them anything else and you might have a chance it court. If the policy hadn't smelled the booze, they would simply ask for your papers and send you on your way.
I was once arrested for drunk driving in Los Angeles. It was "Driving While Renting," because police can differentiate between rentals and other cars; people driving rentals don't have the luxury of staying in jail for a year waiting for trial. They are typically not locals.
The roadside sobriety test came back at less than 0.01. I had gone out and had one non-alcoholic beer, which smells just like regular beer. Unfortunately, due to a stroke at the age of 30, I could not pass a roadside sobriety test. They decided their equipment must be faulty, and took me to jail. The machine at HQ also "malfunctioned," so they turned the case over to a prosecutor.
The people awaiting trial were almost all black and Hispanic. There were probably ten of us who were white, 100 black and 110 or so Hispanic. The other nine white guys were trembling in fear; I have few visual skills, and skin color doesn't regiswter with me. So I walked around talking to all groups (my Spanish is still excellent, and I could pass for a native at the time). I went when I was taken to court and the judge said I was charged with speeding. I asked about the DUI charge and was told the prosecutor had chosen not to press charges. Wise choice given the lack of evidence.
I plead guilty, figuring their radar gun was accurate, and was found guilty and fined $50 suspended. I was processed out, and the police officer who handed me back my possessions refused to shake my hand. His loss.
Somebody should make booze flavored gum, or tic tacs. If stopped, pop one and say "no, sir. Have a tic tac?" If he drags you in for testing, doesn't matter what you say, only what the lab says. Maybe if everybody started chewing booze gum, they'd quit worrying about it. I'll take scotch flavor, maybe Corona on Saturdays.
Oh you would love swedish law then. Let's say I'm the drunk driver (I neither drink nor drive - eyesight and co-ordination isn't up to par) and you're the cop.
And you find me standing next to my car, pitched in the ditch alongside the road, obviously drunk. Still holding a beer can, even.
If I claim that "Oh no I wasn't drunk when driving, I popped a few beers I had in the car to calm my nerves but being in shock I just kept drinking" the cops can't prove drunk driving, and I'll walk. They need to wave you over while actually driving to nail you.
The former leader of the Green party is a notorious drunk driver and has been busted several times, always blaming it on drinking "after the accident, due to shock".
The paranoia about drinking is much like the obsession with Russia. People get an idea in their heads something is bad and it becomes an obsession. The source of those obsessions is usually people with no experience with alcohol except maybe communion, which makes them dizzy even though it's not even real wine in many churches, to protect their sensibilities. There are many reasons for bad driving, alcohol is a fairly minor one. More likely crashes are due to distractions, fatigue, incompetence, or just plain stupid. Most drivers are poor drivers. Some worse than others. Blaming alcohol is just cover for their own inadequacies.
The Darwin Awards are a fun look at stupid things people do. Some involve alcohol. More of them also involved underwear, as do most crashes. Maybe underwear is the real villain.
I suspect many alcoholics are just fine at .08 while novice drinkers could be quite dangerous. The alcoholics who finally get caught register .20 or more and really were seriously impaired but likely had avoided getting caught for a long time. Perhaps the lower limit does intercept a few before they become serious dangers and maybe becomes a wake-up to avoid destiny. But most impaired driving involves the causes you mention.
Underwear is more common than many people realize. If it restricts circulation, it could be a factor. But driving while stupid is also very common, and equally underevaluated. I know a lot of people who never drink but always drive poorly. The world is full of risks. Focusing on just one is dangerous if it causes us to ignore the others.
I always thought you should be able to take the driver's test completely smashed, and if you pass that's your new 'legal' limit. Booze doesn't affect everybody the same way, and 'pro' drinkers aren't even phased at .08, while Lightweight Lorrie can't walk after two glasses of wine.
Here's how that would go in my country (we don't have Miranda or anything like it, instead not co-operating may constitute a crime in itself):
Have you had anything to drink tonight?
I need to talk to an attorney.
You've seen to much US TV-shows, get out of the car now.
No, I want to speak to an attorney.
(Person is hauled out of car and is restrained on the ground, policeman's knee between shoulderblades.)
You're being arrested on reasonable suspicion of hiding a crime. (Meaning even if they don't find anything at all to bring to the prosecutor, you'll spend 6 hours in jail. Your car will likely be towed at your expense, including a possible fine for parking violation.)
Few in the US even appreciate what we have. Many even think that abridgment of natural rights is OK as long as it aligns with their goals. I have lived in several countries without those rights but have found many police are more than aware of their powers and are even more judicious about its use.
This video is so good. All too true, no matter what country you live in.
Does this make sense, trying to cut to the bone of what police actually are as an institution? (No, I'm not for defunding police, I've experienced what it's like in a collapsing nation where the police is just a gang with better gear. Anyone wanting to defund the police, next time you're assaulted or robbed go ask you local crack dealer for help, see if that's better than the coppers.)
The police's function is to make arrests and get material for prosecution.
The prosecutor's job is to get a conviction.
The judge's job is to see to that it all follows procedure and to testify to this.
The defender's job is to get you off as lightly as possible.
Actual guilt and so on is of course a factor somewhere, but not in how the procedures, well, process, if you see what I mean?
Personal tangent:
I remember one professor who talked about a similar point, though this was in relation to political/religious and secret police as opposed to normal "maintain civic order police". He had been looking at various secret police forces around the world, starting with the arcani/areani of roman Britain and working forward from there.
And as he told us, his bewildered students, what he had concluded was that all secret police, and by corollary all police, will work in the same way. Thy will be set up to monitor clandestine thrats to the state. By doing so they build a power base and a parallell structure within the state. Eventually, they will have effectively become the state. Exactly how a specific iteration my look like varies with time and culture, but the job remains the same no matter if it's Cheka, Gestapo or FBI.
And every governement who discovers that they have very little control over their secret police? Will start another one to compete with, check up on and be rival to the older one. Again and again.
We had a friend who was a public defender. His words on how to deal with police: Don't say anything, don't sign anything." Sadly, our friend was killed in an accident many years ago, but his legacy of wise words lives on!
That video is an absolute classic. The Library of Congress should archive a copy, and it should be required in the Civics class every kid needs to pass in order to graduate from high school. Oh, wait...
VERY intertaining. My husband is a lawyer and he didn't know not to talk to the police, we were both educated and entertained. My favorite part was when the first speaker said, "And now what's left of equal time will go to the next speaker."
EVERY time I'm in a conversation where sharing this video is apt...I lose 30 minutes of billable time. I simply cannot share it without also watching it again.
I do stop after the good prof is done, because I've already seen the cop's segment. The prof's segment is Solid Gold.
(My son lives in VA Beach about 5 minutes from Regent University, and I drive by it all the time when I visit him and his family. Can't help but think of Prof. Duane every time!)
I know what you mean. I stopped to watch after I posted. 😝
I resisted this time! But only because it's tax season and I'm way behind because I had to replace my computer two weeks ago (crappy timing).
The justice system isn't really about justice, right and wrong, it's always about winning and losing. The cops are mostly decent people, but they have a job to do and their boss demands wins. Your loss becomes their win. We want them to be hard on real criminals, but fair and balanced with us. The problem is we give them the power to arrest or kill criminals and us, if they consider it a win. Power corrupts, always, so they tend to become more willing to exercise their power to increase their wins.
Maintaining the right balance requires some participation on our part (us being the good guys). As the cop in the video says, everyone breaks laws. Not our fault, usually, but the byzantine law structure makes it likely. The trick is to not act like a criminal. The path to prison has several steps, beginning with the first "interview" with the cop. Act normal, you might not get arrested. Act like a criminal, expect to get treated like one. Just remember the cop has different objectives than you do, and don't get too chatty. He's not your friend. If he's interviewing you, you're either a witness or a suspect. Telling them what you saw makes you a witness. Discussing what you did makes you suspect. Don't do that.
"The trick is to not act like a criminal"
There is no such thing.
The trick to not talk to them.
I won't even go so far as to tell them "what I saw". It's a short path from witness to suspect.
Until and unless I have my attorney by my side, the most I'll ever say is, "I feared for my life" (after a shooting). Otherwise, not a word.
You should read "Deadly Force" (Ayoob) or "The Law of Self Defense" (Branca) for a more comprehensive look at the dynamics of police interactions. They say guilty people shouldn't talk to police, and crazy people shouldn't talk to police, but everyone else can be more effective with controlled interaction. Police are our employees, and need good supervision. Leaving any employee to their own devices invites bad outcomes.
Controlled interaction? Controlled by whom, the guy well-trained in those interactions, or the neophyte who rarely if ever is in the situation?
As Prof. Duane says in the video (paraphrased), "Anything you would say now you can say later, with your attorney by your side. Why rush it?" That sounds like a good approach.
As for the police being our employees, that's sophistry. No way ANY cop is going to be dictated to or allow himself to be "supervised" by a civilian "employer".
The solution is don't be a neophyte. Those who want to learn, can learn.
There's a difference between book smarts and street smarts. Few people have enough real world encounters with the police to *not* be neophytes.
Certainly. There's also a difference beteween inexperience and willful ignorance. Police encounters are a rare occurrence for most people, so it's not worth studying much. But like many things we're unprepared for, learning to get prepared is sometimes beneficial, if not for the unlikely eventuality, then at least for the confidence we can prevail of the worst happens. Preparation improves outcomes. The benefit of book smarts is we get the benefit of others' street smarts without the effort or risk. Ayoob and Branca have a lot of street smarts. Worth studying.
And that sounds great in theory, but in reality I'm not going to take the chance. Even mainstream shows like DATELINE reveal how cops will twist words (or even silence!) to convince themselves they have the right guy.
Those bad cops also twist words not spoken. When interviewed by police you're either a suspect or a witness. Acting like a suspect guarantees harsher action. We're only vulnerable if we choose to be. Or if we're guilty.
Your faith in the cops is touching.
How you "not speak" can dictate whether you're acting like a suspect, or not acting like a suspect but just as someone who chooses to wait for his attorney to be present. Not unlike how you behave when you're pulled over for speeding goes a long way toward whether you get a ticket. (To wit: I was going 63 in a 35, passing a guy, as we approached the Hooksett NH toll booth from less than a 1/4 mile away, in the rain, at night. I pulled over on the other side of the toll booth, almost before the cop had time to make his u-turn to come get me. I was not ticketed.
HOW you do something is as important as WHAT you do.)
And harsher action at the time you *don't* speak - in the moment, without your attorney present - is preferable to the risk of harsher action *because* you spoke and thus gave the government something to twist into a conviction at your trial.
It also might give you grounds for a nice lawsuit settlement...
Most people don't consider fishing for lawsuits to be good use if their time. Cops have a lot of advantages civilians don't have. Defying them only works if they allow it. They allow it if we're not considered worth their time. Every circumstance is unique, and adapting correctly determines our success.
Supporting the police also supports society. Defying them leads to anarchy or tyranny. Some of us are more prepared than others for either outcome, but prefer to keep things working like they are.
Have you had anything to drink tonight?
I need to talk to an attorney.
You don't need that. I smell alcohol.
I need to talk to an attorney.
Will you step out and do a few tests?
I need to talk to an attorney. No.
You will be arrested, that was a given because the police smelled the booze, but you haven't given them anything else and you might have a chance it court. If the policy hadn't smelled the booze, they would simply ask for your papers and send you on your way.
I was once arrested for drunk driving in Los Angeles. It was "Driving While Renting," because police can differentiate between rentals and other cars; people driving rentals don't have the luxury of staying in jail for a year waiting for trial. They are typically not locals.
The roadside sobriety test came back at less than 0.01. I had gone out and had one non-alcoholic beer, which smells just like regular beer. Unfortunately, due to a stroke at the age of 30, I could not pass a roadside sobriety test. They decided their equipment must be faulty, and took me to jail. The machine at HQ also "malfunctioned," so they turned the case over to a prosecutor.
The people awaiting trial were almost all black and Hispanic. There were probably ten of us who were white, 100 black and 110 or so Hispanic. The other nine white guys were trembling in fear; I have few visual skills, and skin color doesn't regiswter with me. So I walked around talking to all groups (my Spanish is still excellent, and I could pass for a native at the time). I went when I was taken to court and the judge said I was charged with speeding. I asked about the DUI charge and was told the prosecutor had chosen not to press charges. Wise choice given the lack of evidence.
I plead guilty, figuring their radar gun was accurate, and was found guilty and fined $50 suspended. I was processed out, and the police officer who handed me back my possessions refused to shake my hand. His loss.
Somebody should make booze flavored gum, or tic tacs. If stopped, pop one and say "no, sir. Have a tic tac?" If he drags you in for testing, doesn't matter what you say, only what the lab says. Maybe if everybody started chewing booze gum, they'd quit worrying about it. I'll take scotch flavor, maybe Corona on Saturdays.
Oh you would love swedish law then. Let's say I'm the drunk driver (I neither drink nor drive - eyesight and co-ordination isn't up to par) and you're the cop.
And you find me standing next to my car, pitched in the ditch alongside the road, obviously drunk. Still holding a beer can, even.
If I claim that "Oh no I wasn't drunk when driving, I popped a few beers I had in the car to calm my nerves but being in shock I just kept drinking" the cops can't prove drunk driving, and I'll walk. They need to wave you over while actually driving to nail you.
The former leader of the Green party is a notorious drunk driver and has been busted several times, always blaming it on drinking "after the accident, due to shock".
The paranoia about drinking is much like the obsession with Russia. People get an idea in their heads something is bad and it becomes an obsession. The source of those obsessions is usually people with no experience with alcohol except maybe communion, which makes them dizzy even though it's not even real wine in many churches, to protect their sensibilities. There are many reasons for bad driving, alcohol is a fairly minor one. More likely crashes are due to distractions, fatigue, incompetence, or just plain stupid. Most drivers are poor drivers. Some worse than others. Blaming alcohol is just cover for their own inadequacies.
The Darwin Awards are a fun look at stupid things people do. Some involve alcohol. More of them also involved underwear, as do most crashes. Maybe underwear is the real villain.
I suspect many alcoholics are just fine at .08 while novice drinkers could be quite dangerous. The alcoholics who finally get caught register .20 or more and really were seriously impaired but likely had avoided getting caught for a long time. Perhaps the lower limit does intercept a few before they become serious dangers and maybe becomes a wake-up to avoid destiny. But most impaired driving involves the causes you mention.
Underwear is interesting, but odd.
Underwear is more common than many people realize. If it restricts circulation, it could be a factor. But driving while stupid is also very common, and equally underevaluated. I know a lot of people who never drink but always drive poorly. The world is full of risks. Focusing on just one is dangerous if it causes us to ignore the others.
I always thought you should be able to take the driver's test completely smashed, and if you pass that's your new 'legal' limit. Booze doesn't affect everybody the same way, and 'pro' drinkers aren't even phased at .08, while Lightweight Lorrie can't walk after two glasses of wine.
Here's how that would go in my country (we don't have Miranda or anything like it, instead not co-operating may constitute a crime in itself):
Have you had anything to drink tonight?
I need to talk to an attorney.
You've seen to much US TV-shows, get out of the car now.
No, I want to speak to an attorney.
(Person is hauled out of car and is restrained on the ground, policeman's knee between shoulderblades.)
You're being arrested on reasonable suspicion of hiding a crime. (Meaning even if they don't find anything at all to bring to the prosecutor, you'll spend 6 hours in jail. Your car will likely be towed at your expense, including a possible fine for parking violation.)
And this is all legal and standard procedure.
Few in the US even appreciate what we have. Many even think that abridgment of natural rights is OK as long as it aligns with their goals. I have lived in several countries without those rights but have found many police are more than aware of their powers and are even more judicious about its use.
It's not uniform, not within jurisdictions, not even within a single department. Lots of good cops, for sure, but every department has bad ones, too.
Governments are as oppressive as we allow.
This video is so good. All too true, no matter what country you live in.
Does this make sense, trying to cut to the bone of what police actually are as an institution? (No, I'm not for defunding police, I've experienced what it's like in a collapsing nation where the police is just a gang with better gear. Anyone wanting to defund the police, next time you're assaulted or robbed go ask you local crack dealer for help, see if that's better than the coppers.)
The police's function is to make arrests and get material for prosecution.
The prosecutor's job is to get a conviction.
The judge's job is to see to that it all follows procedure and to testify to this.
The defender's job is to get you off as lightly as possible.
Actual guilt and so on is of course a factor somewhere, but not in how the procedures, well, process, if you see what I mean?
Personal tangent:
I remember one professor who talked about a similar point, though this was in relation to political/religious and secret police as opposed to normal "maintain civic order police". He had been looking at various secret police forces around the world, starting with the arcani/areani of roman Britain and working forward from there.
And as he told us, his bewildered students, what he had concluded was that all secret police, and by corollary all police, will work in the same way. Thy will be set up to monitor clandestine thrats to the state. By doing so they build a power base and a parallell structure within the state. Eventually, they will have effectively become the state. Exactly how a specific iteration my look like varies with time and culture, but the job remains the same no matter if it's Cheka, Gestapo or FBI.
And every governement who discovers that they have very little control over their secret police? Will start another one to compete with, check up on and be rival to the older one. Again and again.
We had a friend who was a public defender. His words on how to deal with police: Don't say anything, don't sign anything." Sadly, our friend was killed in an accident many years ago, but his legacy of wise words lives on!
That video is an absolute classic. The Library of Congress should archive a copy, and it should be required in the Civics class every kid needs to pass in order to graduate from high school. Oh, wait...
VERY intertaining. My husband is a lawyer and he didn't know not to talk to the police, we were both educated and entertained. My favorite part was when the first speaker said, "And now what's left of equal time will go to the next speaker."
GREAT video. Thank you for sharing.
ive seen it before good vid.
also worth a read is a book called 'wasting police time' by PC David Copperfield. its funny and educational in how to irritate the police
I know noTHING!
I rewatch that video about once a year. Good stuff.