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Comment by geofft | Hacker News Reader

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?

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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.

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)

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