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Friday, July 17, 2015

Why Knowing Your Rights is Not Enough, Why You Should Avoid Police Altogether

In the police accountability movement, we try to stay informed about the law, and about our rights during police encounters. Most of us know that we should try to film the encounter if necessary, and try to ask important legal questions such as “am I being detained” or “am I free to go.”

In a perfect world, knowledge of the law and exercising of one’s rights in this way should be enough to help them escape a police encounter. However, police often have no respect for the law and have no respect the rights of the individuals that they are stopping to harass.

Police will lie, cheat, steal and treat you like even more of a criminal for asserting your rights and questioning them legally.

Asserting your rights is definitely the best way to handle a police encounter. However, it still works – on very few occasions. It’s will be especially difficult if you have been profiled because of your age, race, appearance, or the time of day that you are driving.

The best bet is to attempt to avoid police encounters altogether, knowing that even if you assert your rights you still have a high chance of being assaulted, extorted or kidnapped. Travel on back roads, avoid traveling at night, and if a police car comes anywhere into view, change your direction and take a short detour to avoid the potential encounter. Using the phone app “Waze” is another important strategy to finding out where police are and avoiding them.

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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

duh! I've known this since I was 12 and I'm 60 now. the kops are only out to enrich themselves. And they will use anyone to do it!

lmclain said...

Its a sad state of affairs in a republic when citizens (MILLIONS of them) are afraid of interaction with armed agents of authority.
That must be because of some new urban legend, huh?
When tigers are eating everyone in the high grass, the villagers soon
know that the high grass is very dangerous. It ain't no "urban legend" making them avoid that high grass. It's experience.
The internet has made people a lot more aware of the various criminal actions of the police --- across the country --- and no area or police department is immune.
Police have the right to control the situation, but too many times, THEY escalate it and a small matter is turned into a beating, maiming, and sometimes, death. And its really bad for them to get it FILMED. Who ya gonna believe? THEM or your lying eyes??
Perception is reality.
Keep cheering.

Anonymous said...

which isnt remotely true.

Anonymous said...

It's a GD shame we're actually being told to avoid cops and how to do it.