It’s interesting to me that there are those here who basically are saying that they would not answer the officers’ questions. If I read it correctly, one said it was a consensual conversation.
Good luck with all that.
An officer blocking your path and stating that he wants to ask you questions, is indeed conducting an investigation. If you want to guess that his investigation does not require you to cooperate based upon YOUR assessment of the questions, again good luck with that.
Officers and Detectives will very often ask lightweight questions at first with very specific goals. If you haven’t done anything wrong, why would you even consider not cooperating. Polite cooperation is the quickest way to be on your way.
Interesting that we find out in a second post that there was indeed trouble brewing at the job site.
I am so disgusted with the growing anti police sentiments found here at USCCA. How foolish for people who are focused on their own self protection, to oppose those who make a career of doing just that for their community. To start off from the negative with no BOD given will eventually lead to regrets, guaranteed.
If we have not done anything wrong, why are you questioning us? Not all police are good people. I have a positive view of police in general, but have had a number of not good experiences, too. One led to my getting my auto insurance canceled as a young adult. That resulted in my having to pay several thousand more per year for crappy auto insurance in the assigned risk pool. My crime? Not being a drunk driver as he accused me of. Instead he gave me a bunch of bs traffic tickets. Worse was that the officer appeared to be the inebriated one. I was stone-cold sober as I was the DD that night and was just driving home after driving my friend home.
Here is a video of a professor, James Duane, that explains how talking to the police can lead to problems. You can explain to us how what he states is wrong.
He is there to gather evidence and statements to incriminate somebody. BOTTOM LINE!
They’re not asking questions to let you go, they’re asking questions to find somebody to put in handcuffs, give a citation, and put them through the victimization of our legal process.
“You have the right to remain silent, EVERYTHING YOU SAY CAN AND WILL BE USED AGAINST YOU!”
Does that not ring a bell? Anything you say WILL BE USED AGAINST YOU, and cannot help you.
What if they framed evidence towards you that you threw the water bottle, and you come over and you tell the truth that you didn’t, and now they add a charge of lying to a police officer.
When the officer pulls him to the side and says I want to talk to you, you simply ask am I being detained? If they say yes, you tell them I invoke the 5th.
Don’t be disgusted, my friend and fellow public servant, but be encouraged. We are all evolving. And that evolution at times is worked out through fierce debate, the expression of differing opinions and the exchange of information; we are not carbon copies or robots, and so that means we also need your help as well. As we all have flesh hanging on these bones and are blessed with the ability of thinking individually and are able to express those thoughts; we are also subject to error, because no one, and I mean “no one,” your mirror image included, walks three feet above contradictions. None of us are exempt from being members of the human academy. It is an experience that we all share equally and therefore are dependent upon each other to get wherever it is that we’re going as we course through life. So, I would appeal to you as well, sir. Be patient with us…and help bring us along. Much respect for what you do on a daily basis and your decision to do it. Help keep us safe, by enforcing the law. We depend on you to do what’s right, as those that did so before you. Grace and peace to you.
It is incredibly common for people who had “run ins” with the police in their “youth” to blame police officers for whatever. Thank you for demonstrating this.
And by the way, I am apparently VERY guilty of this very thing, as when I was a patrolman less than 1 in 10 ever admitted that the ticket was legitimate. (Tongue firmly in cheek).
Your comment that not all cops are “good people” of course is accurate, as the Bible declares that “no man is righteous, not one”. But what is your point here?
The bottom line is the law, and the case laws that form our methods for enforcing the law. People do not understand ruses, preliminary investigatory questioning vs Miranda, confessions, searches and on and on. My point is that if you want to play chess with a police officer you better hope you know what you are doing. If you accelerate a field investigation by not cooperating appropriately then you will be risking continual involvement with the officer. Involvement that the officer would prefer to avoid if you are not the guy he is looking for.
The idea that an officer is trying to pin something on someone is just BS. The subjection of an arrest after the fact is intense; arresting officer-> field supervisor-> watch commander → (sometimes Detective bureau) → Filing DA → Prosecutor → Judge → jury → (sometimes court of public opinion and/or media).
Cops are rarely going to traverse that with a “pin on” arrest. That is why we have a saying, “We will get him next time”.
Forensic, I encourage you to “go for it” as this is not how a casual citizen contact goes. If an officer has enough probable cause, you are on your way in. It’s on you if you could have answered a few questions and removed that probable cause.
We had a saying back when, “His alligator mouth wrote checks that his polliwog ass couldn’t cash”. Don’t be that guy that thinks the officer has never dealt with someone who doesn’t really know the law and its workings, but thinks he does.
BTW, if anyone here thinks that they should press an encounter with a police officer while concealed carrying, is beyond a fool. He is a fracking idiot.
At the very least, he could end up losing his firearm for a while or even permanently. Before the street attorneys hit the road, they better study their state laws on “resisting, delaying, or obstructing an officer in the course of his duties”.
Such attitudes and behavior are not only a disservice to that individual, but in the long run they would be a disservice to this entire USCCA Community.
I still think tracking down someone in the grocery store over a thrown water bottle is hard to believe. How many water bottle cases have you investigated and solved over the years?
I just shot somebody, I called and reported a self defense incident.
What should I do?
Should I blabber my mouth, tell you everything that I think what happened, even though the information that I’m giving is not intentionally inaccurate, like the wrong street, wrong number of rounds, wrong distances.
Will that remove enough probable cause so I don’t get to jail and charged with 3rd degree murder???
Or do I invoke my right to an attorney, will not answer your questions, and if it goes to court me and my attorney will gather our own evidence to prove that we’re in the right?
So now I was a thug in my youth? I gather you did not bother to watch the video. It’s so much easier to claim I was the problem, not the officer. I only used that example from my youth because it was the most horrific experience I had with police and our “justice” system that cost me several thousand dollars - not small change, especially when young - and I was innocent, but the cogs of justice grind away, regardless.
I was not “playing chess” with that officer. It was about 4:30am and he figured on a Sunday morning in the Summer in a tourist area, it is likely that that person was at a bar and had been drinking. He pulled me over, had me go through all the sobriety checks - which I obviously passed. He still claimed that I was drunk, but decided not to arrest me. For that favor he handed me three bs tickets.
I took the tickets and went home. At no time did I talk back to him or anything. I did everything he asked. What do you suggest I should have done?
At the time I worked at a local convenience store at night and knew many of the officers in the area. I explained the incident to one of the captains that came in a few nights later. He told me it was my word against the officer’s and I would lose in court. He suggested the best I could do was plead on one of the tickets and the judge would likely dismiss the others, which he did.
I have other stories that occurred later in my life, but were only minor inconveniences, without the huge monetary impact.
I did state that I have a generally good outlook on LE, and as you admitted, their are bad apples in LE, too.
His comments sound like the bull in the China shop. Tell me everything I want to know or I will destroy you. Innocent? What’s that? You have rights?
That reminds me of a story an officer told me about when they were clearing a street so they could run a sting operation. One person would not leave when asked. He told him if he did not leave he would be arrested. When asked on what grounds, he said he would think of something on the way to the station - the guy saw he was serious and left.
That is the type of policing we are talking about.
Doesn’t matter. What matters is what happens when you go to court? Do you want your own words to eat you, or would you rather go to court where the officer doesn’t have enough evidence to take you to trial?
If they want to figure out who did this, or if it actually occurred, and it happened outside the grocery store. Why don’t they go get the CCTV footage, to find who it is?
If they have suspicions that you did it, don’t say anything to them, and give them any sort of admission even when if it’s a mistake, and then get you to court and prosecute you without the CCTV footage.
First of all I know I did not throw a water bottle. The information I gave could be confirmed by looking at the video from the store where I bought fuel and walking into the parking lot.
I posted here to get feedback about the specific question of investigating a thrown water bottle. Thank you to all of you who have answered and who have carefully not answered. @Forensic_Wow I think your point is illustrated pretty clearly when the member in uniform takes what I said that the people resent the location to twisting it as there’s trouble at the job site.