Advice We Shouldn’t Have to Give When Dealing with Cops

Flex Your Rights will soon be releasing an instructional video titled 10 Rules for Dealing with Police.

Here are the 10 rules, in short form.

1. Always be calm and cool.

2. You have the right to remain silent.

3. You have the right to refuse searches.

4. Don’t get tricked into waiving your rights.

5. Determine if you’re free to go.

6. Don’t do anything illegal.

7. Don’t run.

8. Never touch a cop.

9. Report misconduct: Be a good witness.

10. You don’t have to let them in.

In a post titled 10 Rules For Dealing With Police: Prudence and Subservience, Ken at the Popehat blog astutely comments on rule number 1.

See, if your goal is not to be abused, wrongfully arrested, falsely accused, searched without probable cause, or proned out on the pavement because you irritated someone with a gun and a badge, then “don’t be mouthy to a cop” is excellent practical advice. But dammit, we shouldn’t have to give that advice. The concept that you should expect to be abused if you aren’t meek (or, to be more realistic, subservient) in dealing with public servants ought to be abhorrent to a society of free people. Courtesy is admirable, and unnecessary rudeness is not, but rudeness ought not be seen as inviting government employees to break the law. But the reality is that our society largely issues apologias for, not denunciations of, police abuse. The prevailing belief is that claims of abuse are about lawyers or crooks trying to game the system, that people accused of crimes generally committed them, and that cops are heroes of the sort who deserve the benefit of the doubt when their account of a roadside encounter differs from that of a citizen. Our society, for the most part, indulges cops in their expectation that citizens will be subservient. As a result, “don’t talk back to a cop” remains tragically apt practical advice.

Moreover, the truth of it is that many cops will interpret an assertion of your constitutional rights, however politely delivered, as a rude challenge. They are supported in that view by four decades of “law and order” talk that classifies constitutional rights as mere instrumentalities of crime, not as the rules by which we have chosen to live.

Shame on us if we put up with that.

Well said.

Linked via Radley Balko who titles his post on the subject On Flexing Your Rights. Or at Least Meagerly Trying to Hold on to Them.

Links to clips from the instructional video can by accessed at Popehat, Radley’s site, and .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 03/29 at 02:43 PM

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