Hacker News Reader

Comment by assimpleaspossi | Hacker News Reader

The type of person who gets themselves in a situation where they can become a suspect is one that I can't see getting into. It makes me question what the person did to have this happen to them.

I lead a normal life. I've never gotten into a situation where this could ever possibly concern me. I'm betting the vast majority of people who visit HN (and aren't commenting here) wouldn't have this issue, either.

I do not fear the police. The police have helped me in several situations such as car accidents. At my business they discovered my back door open and, within minutes, caught the person who stole something. My car got side swiped overnight and they walked the street to see if any neighbor had a camera. And on and on.

You wouldn't find me in an illegal situation involving the police except if I happened to be there. But I wouldn't fear being hauled off to jail cause that just won't happen except on the internet.

View on HN

That's where this part applies to you:

> NO, YOU CAN'T TALK THEM OUT OF IT

> No, they don’t care about your story

If you are suspected of a crime, your inclination is going to be to explain the situation because it must be a mistake. If you find yourself suspected of a crime, you should talk to a lawyer, not the police.

People unknowingly break laws every day, yourself included. You have a right not to incriminate yourself. It is not fearing the police to recognize that innocent people get swept up in the bureaucratic law enforcement machine all the time. Talking to the police can only hurt you in this situation.

Finally, your examples are all examples where you were the victim of a crime, which is covered in the article.

What you are fearing is fear itself. It's not going to happen and I have no reason to fear it will

Los of innocent people are convicted of crimes they didn’t commit, often on the basis of their conversations with the police. You have every right not to fear it, but it is not an uncommon occurrence

It's an uncommon occurrence no matter what the TV and internet tells you.

I was accused of a minor felony about 20 years ago. I was on video 80+ miles away from the crime from four hours before to four hours after.

My alleged coconspirator talked to cops because he knew he was innocent. They datained him overnight a couple times, showed up at his work and got him fired, and pissed off his landlord by showing up at his house a bunch of times.

I shut the hell up and refused to answer any questions without an attorney. I never heard back from the cops after that.

There's always the wrong-time-wrong-place situation, as well as running into an officer who is having a bad day or behind on his quota - lots of stories of police pulling over people who blow 0.0 on the breathalyzer and arrest them anyway for their quota.

Reminds me of the "I've got nothing to hide" mentality. Just because I'm not breaking the law, doesn't mean I want to make it easy for bad people to abuse me.

> I lead a normal life. > At my business

You don't know what normal life is in the US.

> they discovered my back door open and, within minutes, caught the person who stole something.

Plenty of people can tell you about the cops never bothering to show up to a call, or showing up hours later and shrugging. The fact that this supposedly happened to you is the outlier.

I live in the US and I'm older than you (I'd bet) and have far more experiences than you.

How many is "plenty of people" and what percent versus those of us who get results in minutes.

I am NOT the outlier. My stories are the stories of my neighbors and everyone I know. My stories are from what's in front of me and not random, anonymous internet posts.

> have far more experiences than you.

Rich people have lots of experiences. They do not know what normal life is like.

> How many is "plenty of people" and what percent versus those of us who get results in minutes.

I know entire neighborhoods where people won't even call the police because they either won't do anything anyway or they will harass and find a way to fuck over the person who called. I know how cops treat brown people versus whites. I know how they will treat you if you have money and I know how they will treat you if you don't.

The people who supposedly get results in minutes are the minority.

> I am NOT the outlier. My stories are the stories of my neighbors and everyone I know.

This is a meaningless statement. I can say the exact same thing.

> My stories are from what's in front of me and not random, anonymous internet posts.

You are the random internet post to everyone else but you, mate. Try not to be so solipsistic.

You are probably right most of the time, but that also depends where you are.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com