SPOOFE, there’s been a e-murder, and you’re a suspect!
Personally I think it was Reeder in the pit with the anti-bush pamphlet… :eek: 
:eek:
Uh…exactly. Did you seriously mean to make this argument?
Ordinary people–citizens–exist around crimes in the course of our daily lives because criminals live among us. To what degree should that proximity imply guilt or complicity for the vast majority of harmless people muddling through their lives.
“Don’t like being a suspect? Well, then you better not go ANYWHERE, bucko, because eventually it’s gonna happen” is a nightmare definition of a paranoid state. Do you honestly believe that criminality should be the default assumption for everyone? That’s everything to do with government.
Ugh.
Same thing happened to me.
Guy gets hired at my job. My immediate gut feeling of the guy was “this guy is bad news, why was he hired?” I talked to another co-worker/friend and she said “Just give the guy a chance.”
I chance I gave. Big mistake.
Guy routinely gabs on the phone a lot. We work for 8 hours, he talks for 3. Boss doesnt want to fire him, because that might upset someone he knows.
I usually put 10 feet between him and myself.
So im working. Guy has phone. Guy makes call. Phone in workplace rings. Im watching the guy and working. Im about 20+ feet away. I hear ‘bomb bitch’. He laughs. Calls again. Phone rings. At this point Im heading towards him to ask him what he is doing. He says his threat again.
Im shocked at the stupidty of the events I have witnessed.
Before I can say anything someone has told the ‘followtherulestotheletter’ guy.
He calls the police the police arrive. In full force. Musta been 10 of them.
The boss shows up and says ‘which one of you didnt want to work today?’
I turned around and looked at the guy who did the deed. He was all giddy and laughing.
So the police get our information. And they left.
We had a meeting. Where the boss told us about this and that and how using a bomb threat wasnt a good way of getting out of work.
The rest of the day the guy shadowed me everywhere. I figured if he was happy enough to laugh when the police came and didnt want to tell anyone what he had done, then I wasnt going to turn him in.
Nobody was hurt, an hour was wasted.
The next day the police came and looked for the guy. He apparently gave false info.
The guy didnt show up all week, and as a result he was fired. The police were looking for him as well.
Then I get a phone call. It is a police officer. He’d like a statement.
So I say sure and go to the station. I get put in an interrogation room.
They leave me there for a bit, about 15 minutes.
So the police officer comes back and asks me what happened. I recount the events mentioned above. He says ‘let me get you some paper to write it down’.
I get a few sheets of paper. One has the miranda rights on it. I ask what the paper is about. He tells me it is so I know it is not a good thing to lie to a police officer.
So I pen the events and he asks me about details. Every time I answered and there was a word that could be twisted he would twist it.
This mad me very angry. I could feel the hate building. I had no reason to hate this guy at all, but there it was building, choking. It was at this time I noticed a shadow over me. Apparently a higher up came to fill in for the bad cop, he blocked the doorway completely with his body.
Said to me “You are full of shit, I wanted to make an arrest two weeks ago.”
I was furious I could feel my anger filling me. I was getting like a can of coke that was shaken very hard, which would blow up if opened.
My grand-dad has some issues with anger. My dad has a lot of issues with anger.
I try to not lose myself in anger like my dad sometimes did. I try to not let it all out. If I did I certainly could hurt someone.
Most of the time if I focus I can ‘release’ some of the pressure.
Here these two cops are grilling me for something I didnt do.
And I am furious, my anger is causing me to not be able to articulate my thoughts. Everytime I say something I am under assualt.
They said looking at my posture and face, that I was lying and my ‘good’ name would be in jeopardy.
Everytime the cop said that, it made me angrier.
The door guard said previously they would let people off the hook if they ‘fessed up’ but in this day and age after 9/11 things were different.
They asked me why I hadnt come and told on the guy. I retorted I didnt have time. The door guard quipped something to the effect of ‘we dont or make time or something’. Which was true I was in college taking 15 credits, one class was old norse, which took hours opon hours to do the work for.
They let me go and told me “no news is good news.”
I tried to focus. I came in after 5 and was allowed to leave later. I dont know what time it was, but it was dark, and I was furious.
The source of the anger I couldnt quite figure out. I was angry for weeks. I was angry that someone would think I would ever call a bomb threat in. And that I would use an in-house phone. And that had I in a fit of stupidity did indeed call a bomb threat in, that I wouldnt own up to doing so.
I view the events as if I was on the corner about to cross the street, and someone ran a red light. Had someone been hurt I would have said something.
Apparently the co-worker who did the deed had a long criminal record. So he told them I told him to do it.
Oh well. I will never trust a cop again, since they won’t trust me.
You didn’t read the linked article, did you?
Not to demean you, Bob, but why the hell did you continue to talk to the cops after the first indication that you were a suspect? Immediately after they Mirandized you, you should have been screaming for an attorney and said nothing else. “Giving a statement” is one thing; submitting to an interrogation is something else entirely. You’re not under any obligation to answer the cops’ questions without an attorney present. And even then you don’t have to answer.
Since the problem is with the technical side, I doubt a lawyer would be much help.
I had never been in that situation before. They didnt even read anything. They had a sheet with the miranda rights on them.
I now know what to do when dealing with police, but I didnt plan on learning that way.
I think it is a crock that they can lie to you all they want but if you lie to them they can press charges.
Apparently there had been numerous threats before the guy did his at work, and they stopped after he was gone.
Why shouldn’t he answer their questions? After all, he hasn’t done anything wrong. He’s an innocent citizen. He doesn’t have anything to hide. He can’t possibly get in any trouble by cooperating with the police.
Right?
OUCH. I rolled my eyes so far I just sprained them.