You're stopped by the police. Do you listen carefully and follow every instruction quickly?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Respect for authority was drilled into my generation. If you went to the school principal’s office you knew better than to back talk. You listened to what he/she had to say, indicated a willingness to do better, and returned to class. You might even wait a few days before shooting off any more spitballs. :slight_smile:

Same thing when you’ve been a PITA all day at home. Mom issues the dreaded “wait until your dad comes home” proclamation. You better bet when it was time to face dad, it was time to be the sweetest, most eager to please kid on that street.

These kinds of life skills serve you well as an adult. If you do get stopped by the police then that’s the time those skills make all the difference. Be extra polite, patient, listen very carefully to instructions, never make any sudden movements, and comply immediately to instructions without any comment. The goal is to get it over with quickly and with the least hassle. It makes your life easier and it makes the officer’s job less stressful.

People today don’t realize that showing an attitude or back talking does nothing but escalate a tense situation. For example it can make all the difference in being a given a ticket you pay by mail and having to go straight to traffic court to pay immediately.

You can still run into a rude police officer. But being polite and cooperative is still the best strategy. I got nailed in a speed trap in another state. Had to drive to traffic court right then and pay before I could continue my trip. Lost several hours of travel time. I wasn’t happy about it, but you wouldn’t have known it by the expression on my face. I was very cooperative and couldn’t wait to get the hell out of that town. It was the classic money making speed trap that they were running. Sure, I could have complained and extended my stay. But why would I make things more difficult for myself?

I see this come up today constantly in news reports. People are uncooperative, they back talk and it bites them in the ass every time. Its just common sense that you’ll get a better outcome if you’re polite and cooperative.

Its important to remember that any traffic stop carries with it a certain amount of stress on the police officer. They never know who or what situation they will encounter. Just days ago a 15 year veteran California officer was shot and killed in the blink of an eye.His partner returned fire and wounded the killer. He was arrested at a hospital the next day.

Just as an example, this lady escalated a simple traffic stop (failing to use a turn signal) because she wouldn’t extinguish a cigarette. Police give that same instructions to smokers in every state for decades. Who wants smoke in their face? It comes right out of your opened car window. It stinks and second hand smoke is now a recognized health hazard. Even worse a hot cigarette flicked at the officer’s face can be a weapon. The whole thing was recorded on dash cam. Just a little politeness and cooperation and this lady would have been on her way with the ticket. Instead it escalates and she gets jailed. Then allegedly commits suicide in the cell. Tragic and senseless case.

Please don’t derail this thread with a discussion of the Sandra Bland case. I know its controversial and the cop certainly overreacted. Its a senseless tragedy. Please start your own thread if you want to discuss it at great lengths. I’m just using this as an example. How a failure to comply with a basic and reasonable instruction needlessly escalated what should have been a trivial traffic stop.

I see these news reports week after week and just shake my head. Is it that hard to be polite and cooperative for 10 or 15 minutes? What is the deal with the current generation?

2

Yes and no: I listen carefully, but don’t do anything quickly.

3

I asked the mods to lock this ruined thread.

stupid poll script rejected my poll for being too long and wouldn’t let me fix it.

4

I was also taught to avoid doing shit that would cause the police to stop me.

But yes, generally in occasions when stopped by the police, I’ve found the best approach is to be polite, follow instructions and give as little information as possible.

I never really understood idiots who get argumentative or combative with police. I mean unless they are drunk or on drugs. Then I understand that’s the reason why.

5

That might be part of it, in some instances. But IMO a big part of it is the prevailing attitude in certain parts of society in response to incidents like these, including but not limited to various demonstrations, riots, and even message board postings. All of these and the like in combination create an attitude of antipathy to, and defiance of, the cops, and an overinflated sense on a civilians’ personal rights to defy them. You take a person with this attitude and have some cop tell them something they don’t like, they are a lot more apt to take a defiant attitude in response.

Which is not to say that a lot of the complaints about the cops are wrong. That’s not so, and much of it is justified. But too much of a focus on it and too much anger about it does not produce a compliant attitude when in these types of situations.

You can see that aspect in the both the recent Bland case as well as that actress who was stopped for indecency.

6

I would listen carefully and do as instructed. If the cop is doing something outside of his authority, the correct answer is to find a lawyer and get the cop shot down, after the fact. Challenging the validity of his actions and requests, on the spot, is just being an idiot. You’re not going to win an arguing match and you’re certainly not going to win in a fight (considering that, not only can he call in refinforcements, but you’re suddenly on the hook for more now).

No one taught me to obey the police. It’s just clearly the right thing to do if you take the microsecond to think about it.

7

I once got slowly followed in a quiet, run down suburb by a guy yelling “Hey, you! You! Where are you going? Are you from around here?” After a few blocks of waking quickly and being scared of this clear whacko, he eventually identified himself as a cop and gave me a nice lecture on listening to the police.

Jerk.

8

Always respond politely to police when stopped. Inquire how they are doing, don’t make threatening gestures, etc. Even if I disagree with why I was pulled over. LEO’s aren’t the court system, they’ve normally made up their mind as to why they pulled you over, and aren’t swayed by arguments or belligerence. More often than not courtesy, kindness and respect will result in a warning, vs. a ticket.

The time to argue against the stop, ticket, etc, is in the court room.

9

My father explained the drill to me.

When you are stopped while driving, you pull over onto the shoulder, turn off the car, turn on the flashers, roll the window down halfway, and put your hands on the wheel. When he asks to see your license, you take it out of the wallet and hand it to him, along with the proof of insurance and whatever other papers necessary.

As I have said elsewhere, it is difficult to talk yourself out of a ticket, but rather easy to talk yourself into one.

The idea that the average cop is a closet Nazi with authority issues and an itchy trigger finger is stupid.

Regards,
Shodan

10

I’m all for being a reasonable human being to police, or anyone else for that matter, but let’s not ignore that an awful lot of police have power go to their heads.

And I’m not necessarily talking about police beating the crap out of someone because they ‘deserve it’ for not extinguishing a cigarette. I’m talking about stuff like this: the other day I was driving here in the city and a bike whizzed through a four way stop going easily 30 mph. The rider’s hands weren’t even on the handlebars. Who was this jerk? A police officer. If that were any other human I would have laid on the horn but good, just to let this asshole know that bikers don’t own the whole street. But no, because he had a badge, I hesitated, and before I knew it he was half a block away.

There’s also quite a few cops near my work who do basic security duty. Most of them are professionals. There’s a handful that basically play grab-ass and have profanity-laden conversations when their sergeant isn’t around. If these guys were clerks in a supermarket, some shopper would let them have it. But they have badges, so I’m sure virtually nobody in their right might wants to speak up to tell them they are behaving like seventh graders.

ace, do you think people should refrain from reacting to cops being jerks in the situations I described above? Ya know, because their jobs are dangerous?

11

Thank you for being a voice of reason!

You wouldn’t believe how many people bitch, moan and complain about cops and how they were treated only because they themselves didn’t follow one of life’s most simple rules - don’t be a douchebag.

12

What’s the correct reaction? And at what point do you use it? I’ve never had a rotten interaction with police, so I’m not even sure how that would feel in person. Because I’ve had good dealings with the constabulary, I’d be seriously confused if one of them was randomly and asshole.

13

I have never been accosted by a cop who wasn’t wearing a uniform, or wasn’t clearly identifiable as a cop.

I did live in a college town for a while, where the cops have distinct chips on their shoulders, and are apt to expect you to want to knock them off, even if you don’t.

Most cops I have dealt with were reasonably professional. On a few occasions, I have been in situations where the cops were ready for me to try something stupid, in particular one occasion where they suspected I might be a guy they were looking for (I wasn’t, but I fit the physical description, and the guy was a killer).

The rules are fairly simple: keep your hands in sight, don’t make any sudden moves, keep your facial expression neutral, and speak in monosyllables and in a neutral tone. Show them your ID and your car insurance paperwork. Stand there and wait for them to lose interest.

I have dealt with a cop or three who was a jerk, and felt the need to shove his authority down my throat, or at least speak to me as if I were a child, a crack dealing child pimp, or both. I just kept calm, and kept my voice neutral, and answered questions as tersely as possible without actually being uninformative.

One cop did not like this, and asked if I was giving him attitude. My response was, “No, I am not.” He didn’t LIKE it, but then, one got the impression he wouldn’t have liked it no matter what I did. Some people are just assholes, cops included. Regrettably, asshole cops are in a position to make your life difficult.

Most cops, though, even in Texas, are not assholes. But I figure if they’re obligated to be professional, so am I, and if they’re going to behave in a professional manner, then I should do no less.

And if they’re going to be turds about it, I will get blank and answer questions in monosyllables and wait for them to get bored.

It’s worked so far. But, then, I’m white.

14

On the one hand I don’t feel a need to prove my autonomy from order-issuing martinets the way I once did when I was younger. I can put myself in a mode “obedient for now” combined with “wait and see”.

But I’m not really filled with automatic respect or a belief in the rightness of their authority quite apart from how they exercise it, and I may decide to dig in my heels if someone of the coppish persuasion seems determined to humiliate me in some fashion. I don’t really approve of the role they perform, although I don’t blame them personally for that and I recognize it as a nasty and thankless job. But it’s also a job that appeals to people who like to be in a position of authority over other people (not the exclusion of others to whom the job appeals, mind you, but yes it does).

I don’t see myself as a “person with attitude” so much as I am reactive to cops with attitude.

15

The best advice I’ve heard is you need to be respectful with any given officer, period. The place to settle disputes with any given officer is not the side of the road. They stopped you, they have the legal authority to stop you, end of story.

If you think they acted improperly take it up with the police department or the courts. You will not settle things on the side of the road by arguing with an officer, that is not the time or place.

16

So what would you do if you were walking down the street and you saw a uniformed police officer throw an empty bottle of Coke into the street? I mean, just straight-up littering.

17

I agree as to the “closet Nazi” and “itchy trigger finger” but not the “authority issues” part. This is based on both enormous empirical evidence and on the fact that it makes sense that a job which gives tremendous petty authority would attract people who enjoy having that authority.

And the trigger finger part is an outcome of that. Partly as a result of this authority issue, cops really don’t like it if people are not as compliant as they feel they should be, and they really really don’t like it if people give them an attitude. So when that happens, the cops tend to escalate things, and sometimes serious consequences result. So even when a cop has zero desire to shoot anyone at all, he does want you to do what he tells you, and if you don’t then he’s going to make you, and if you give him some sass he’s going to put you in your place, and if you resist that, then next thing you know he’s feeling threatened and the gun comes out.

The conundrum as I see it is that there’s really nothing major that can be done about this which would not involve rendering the cops ineffective at their jobs. So other than some minor tweaking here and there the lesser evil is for people to just put up with it in the name of the greater good of being protected from hordes of rampaging criminals. And that’s where I see the problem being exacerbated by all the anti-cop sentiment which is rising in the country as a whole and in minority communities in particular. Because it just encourages more people giving cops attitude, which encourages more cops to clamp down, and leads to more incidents like these.

18

I got stopped after going wrong way down a one way street, driving a car my brother had rented. He was not in the car. I quickly turned on to a street going the right way, but the police pulled up:
‘Do you know what you did wrong?’
‘Yes, I drove down a one way street the wrong way. I’m so sorry, not used to driving in town.’ They cautioned me - no ticket since they were satisfied I’d just made a mistake. *Even though I’d confessed to a crime. *They said if I’d told them I didn’t know what I’d done wrong they would have ticketed me.

Meanwhile my drunken and stoned and probably carrying drugs passengers were shouting out ‘We’re all tourists’ - none of us were, and one started up about the nationality of one of the police. I was telling them to shut up, the police were trying to ignore them, eventually they asked two of them to get out and they searched them. What a pair of idiots - I really wanted to drive off and leave them.

My mother gave me ‘the talk’: the police have the power to lock you up. You have the ability to avoid being locked up.

19

Not a darn thing. Why would I? Seriously? What purpose would it serve? I also don’t confront random strangers on the street who do the same thing - if you do it in my yard, yes, I’ll be all up in your face. But that’s different. On my property, I’m the boss. I’m not the boss out in public, and I’m certainly not the boss of you or anyone else when it comes to littering. Get a grip. It’s littering - not locking children or puppies in hot cars or something.

20

Although I can’t vouch for everything he says, this Reddit post makes some good points.

I know a couple Iraq/Afghanistan vets and while they are generally good guys, they do have some issues. Being in a combat unit changes them, and it’s hard for many of them to adjust to “normal” society after returning. They don’t have a lot of empathy and feel lost without their unit. Some also feel like normal everyday people are out to get them, probably much like they had to worry about with some Iraqi/Afghani citizens.

Put these guys in a police uniform and I can see the “it’s us vs. them” mentality continue. For the most part there are no enemy combatants in the US, mostly just people that make bad life decisions.