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Comment by erispoe | Hacker News Reader

This is indeed the best advice: do not talk to the police. It can never help and you are likely to incriminate yourself even if you are innocent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE

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Lawyers always give this advice, because by the time a case gets to a defense attorney, the defendant's statements to police can only be a negative. But in the case of a minor traffic stop, you can often avoid a ticket by being polite and apologizing. Or, stated conversely, you can turn a planned warning into a ticket by being a jerk or totally non-cooperative. (Caveat: I am a white dude. This may not work for all races and genders.)

I'd rather accept the higher likelihood of a ticket and preserve my rights than have to kiss ass just to be given decent treatment as a human being. Fuck the police and fuck talking to them. Also white male with plenty of money for lawyers.

The point is you never know what police is looking for. What looks like a simple traffic stop to you can be police looking for a suspect, and by being cooperative, you risk incriminating yourself. It's not worth it, never.

Even if the intention is a simple traffic stop, police is incentivized to bring their numbers up, so anything you say during a traffic stop can and routinely will be used to pin higher offenses on you. Again, it's not worth it.

Not that I disagree with this advice, but what are you supposed to do if you're the victim of a crime (e.g., like the comment at the top of the thread, another driver crashed into your car)?

Is the answer that the best thing to do is to let it go - and, in turn, to let go of any possible insurance payout that depends on you filing a police report?

The lawyer who said "don't talk to police" would undoubtably talk to police if he was a victim of a crime. The lack of nuance or thoughtfulness in that video seems to be part of the appeal to folks who like to link to it.

A more reasonable take would be to do a cost benefit analysis of whether an interaction with the police would likely cause trouble for you.

As a random citizen you cannot make that cost benefit analysis. For anything else than a serious crime, you're better off not talking to the police. If you need to talk to the police, only do so after consultation with, and accompanied by, an attorney.

So as a random citizen you can't do a cost benefit analysis of whether to talk to the police but you can somehow evaluate whether a law professor, seemingly unrepresentative of his profession, is giving good advise in a bizarre Youtube video? That's some selective learned helplessness.

If you are too ignorant to evaluate whether to talk to the police then you are too ignorant to evaluate the accuracy of the video.

You do realize attorney's cost MONEY right? And the vast majority of people cannot afford an attorney's assistance. I mean if you are in the 6 figures and up club like most of Hacker News you can probably pay for a legal plan where the attorney can file to get paid a couple hundred bucks for the question you asked but still.....

(this is the part where I get sent links for a bunch of "free" legal resource links, that will totally respond to your email and return your phone call. Totally)

I have filed police reports for stolen bikes for instance, that's fine. Especially if you can do it electronically. But never agree to talk to them without an attorney supervision, under any circumstances.

If you are a victim of a severe crime, please talk to an attorney first.

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