I was going to post this as a comment, but it was in an anarchism community, and I figured some sections of it might be unacceptable there. Hence, new post.
Here’s a guideline of how to interact with cops. There are more or less three modes, depending on your read of the situation. Cops are not always the enemy or the maniacal whole-job-is-making-evil thugs that Lemmy sometimes makes them out to be. It really is bad for people to get mugged or their cars broken into, and they’re the solution our society has come up with to minimize the amount of it that happens. It’s not always a bad thing.
If you find yourself talking to the cops, there are more or less three ways:
- They’re there to solve a real problem. Someone’s car got broken into, someone got beat up. Just talk with them. Tell them what you know, help them figure out the situation. In almost all of the US, their effect on the problem will be positive, and it’ll be a lot more positive if they have a good grasp of what happened. If, in your opinion, the person they’re trying to catch really did do something that warrants a law enforcement response, then give them a hand. Use your judgement as to whether that’s warranted of course, and your impression of the justice level in your local area, since it varies quite a lot in the US.
- They’re there for you. Shut the fuck up. Don’t say a goddamned word. It doesn’t even matter if you didn’t do it. Don’t explain. Shut the fuck up. Be polite, obey lawful orders, definitely don’t fight them or you’ll get a felony and might also get injured or worse, but tell them that if you’re suspected of a crime, then you’d like to talk to a lawyer, and you have nothing else to say. And then, shut the fuck up and cooperate. Maybe you want to go as far as “Were you shoplifting?” “What? No. That wasn’t me, man.” But any further explanation than that, just leave it alone. Definitely don’t make something up on the spot, to make yourself sound innocent, if you did do it. For the love of God, don’t do that.
- They’re there for someone who didn’t do anything wrong. The reason for this post is, anything and everything with ICE and immigration falls into this category. Some things with local cops will, also. Just be unhelpful and simple. No, I didn’t see anything. I don’t know. I’m not sure. Be vague. Don’t get creative, keep it simple, don’t refuse to give your ID or otherwise antagonize them or commit minor crimes of obstruction, but just do your best imitation of someone who just fell from the sky. “So you’ve NEVER MET your neighbor. Your neighbor across the hall.” “Nope.” “Are you sure?” “Yeah, I don’t know.” “I mean, she gave us your name, she said she’d talked to you.” “I don’t know, I don’t remember that.” Don’t embellish. Don’t explain why. Just calmly let the silence linger and the pressure build up, without adding extra words.
Like I said, everything with ICE or other immigration authorities falls into the third category. No exceptions. Everything. The same applies with any type of federal law enforcement, I suspect, for the next few years.
Hm. In the US, that would be alright except when he refused to tell them who he was. That can get you arrested. I get how “I don’t answer questions” is good just because it’s specific enough that you can stick to it when shit’s getting a little bit real, but it also doesn’t really apply to all questions or all situations.
Here’s a defense law office giving their abbreviated take on it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqo5RYOp4nQ
They have a longer one, where they told a story of an illegal dispensary that got raided. Two employees tried to explain their way out of it. A third employee just shut the fuck up. The first two got charges, because their attempt to talk their way out of it confirmed that they were working there as employees. The third guy, nobody could prove a damn thing about why he was there. Was he a customer? An employee? Had he wandered in to use the bathroom? Nobody knows. And so, he was free to wander on his merry way, while the other two had some minor but not real enjoyable charges to deal with.
Shut the fuck up.
You are not required to identify yourself if you are not operating a motor vehicle (in which case you must supply your license if asked) and you have not been accused of any specific crime. “Being suspicious” or “fitting a description” or “we got a call” is not a specific crime. If there is not reasonable suspicion that you were the one who committed an articulable crime, you don’t have to provide your name.
Read up on your state’s laws. If your state is not a “stop and identify” state you don’t even have to identify yourself if you have been accused of a crime. That’s for the police to figure out themselves if they care so damn much. You invoke the 5th.
In this guy’s case (I don’t know what to make of the accents or the checkboard hats or the Astra, so I suspect this is not meant to be happening in the USA, but whatever) he is on his own property, has not been shown a warrant, and has not been accused of a crime. He doesn’t have to state anything. If he is not required to interact with these police at all. He’s not even obligated to open the door. If these cops had a single pinky toe to stand on, they’d have shown up with a warrant.
This is completely accurate. I should have said, it’s a little bit unclear from the video, but it sounds like they suspect Ray Whoever of a crime, which is why I was saying it that way. But if he was just some random person, he’d be completely within his rights to refuse to ID himself, which is a very important clarification.
This is a good overview:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_and_identify_statutes
I didn’t even know that there were states which were not “stop and identify” states, I just learned something today. I still don’t completely get it… the article says that, in practice, you can be arrested for obstruction anyway if you don’t identify yourself, even without the statute, or maybe you can’t. It says the California ACLU recommends that people identify themselves regardless, since they may be arrested for it, even though the arrest will be illegal.
More generally, this depends heavily on the details of the interaction, and the US state where the interaction was taking place.
In the “I don’t answer questions” clip, if it were in the US, the police probably did have enough to arrest the guy, however “The court also held that the Fifth Amendment could allow a suspect to refuse to give the suspect’s name if he or she articulated a reasonable belief that giving the name could be incriminating.” Since the officers were asking for a specifically named person, it might be within the guy’s 5th Amendment rights to refuse to identify himself. Would his not identifying himself as the person they were looking for make it so they couldn’t (shouldn’t) arrest him? Possibly, since they’re looking for someone with a specific name, and they don’t know that that guy is named that.
Of course, you might beat the rap, but you can’t beat the ride.
This is some of the worst and wrongest legal advice I have ever heard. No, that’s not how it works.
There are situations where you don’t have to identify yourself. If you’re just standing around, and they’re curious, then you can tell them to get lost and they can’t have your ID. However, if the cops have a reason to suspect you specifically of a crime, even a slight suspicion, then you have to identify yourself, in all 50 states. You will not only get the ride, you will get misdemeanor charges.
This is what SCOTUS found:
In the situation that played out in the clip, had that been in the US,
The court upheld Hiibel’s conviction. The part you’re quoting is in the part where they left open the possibility that there could be some crazy type of circumstances where revealing your name could, itself, form a link in a chain of evidence that the cops needed in order to convict you of some other different crime.
There is not, that I know of, any person ever in the United States who has ever been found innocent of failure to ID, or had their conviction overturned for some other crime or something, under the logic you’re saying. It was just a side note while they convicted the guy. Do you know of someone who’s ever gotten off due to this logic?
I said “might.” Not “would.”
You also said, “Since the officers were asking for a specifically named person, it might be within the guy’s 5th Amendment rights to refuse to identify himself. Would his not identifying himself as the person they were looking for make it so they couldn’t (shouldn’t) arrest him? Possibly.”
That “possibly” should have been written as “Absolutely the fuck not, and it would in all likelihood get him additional charges on top of what they were already arresting him for.” That’s why I said it was terrible advice.
“We got a report of a guy having assaulted someone here, you answered the door, so you’re under arrest”?
To be fair, the biggest mistake the guy made was answering the door at all.
No. “We’re looking for Ray so-and-so, because we have reasonable articulable suspicion that he committed a crime. Are you him? Can I see some ID?”
There is absolutely 0 scenario in which refusing to cooperate with that request will lead to a good outcome.
Kind of. Pretending not to be home might have been marginally helpful, or it might not. Once he determined that he was going to talk to them, though, I actually for real sort of mentally commended him for doing exactly what he should have done: He walked out of the front door, and then closed it behind him, thus having the interaction with the police without giving them any kind of wiggle room for some marginally-plausible reason to enter his home. That’s exactly the right thing to do.