YouTube Shorts is throwing me in a rabbit hole of policeman seemingly overstepping the boundaries when stopping citizens for a routine check. The discussions often revolve around asking and not wanting to show their ID (“unless you can tell me what crime you accuse me of”). Is there a particular reason why they’re so hesitant to present their ID to the police officer? It only seems to escalate the situation. In Belgium I don’t see the harm in showing my ID when I’m stopping by a police officer. (added url as an example)
Are Belgian police as dangerous as American police?
I don’t think of the Belgian police as being dangerous. But possibly because of the difference in amount of police officers (it seems to be 13.000 in Belgium, 900.000 in USA) you can report on more wrongdoings in the USA than in Belgium, but overall (per capita) the relative amount of incidents could compare? It can come over as naive but I just couldn’t understand what could go wrong by showing your ID.
In the American judicial system, there is an explicit presumption of innocence and equal application of the law. At least that’s what’s written in the US constitution.
In reality, law enforcement assumes everyone guilty of “something” and their pursuing investigation is far from equally applied. They also assume every person they interact with intends to commit violence.