
Everyone Has the Right to Mouth Off to Cops - frostmatthew
http://www.citylab.com/crime/2015/07/everyone-has-the-right-to-mouth-off-to-cops/399548/
======
zw123456
I think that whole incident shows that dash cams and other types of cop cams
don't necessarily curb police abuse. I think the main reason is that they all
feel pretty confident that even if they completely break the law there is
likely to be no consequences for the police. Until we start holding the police
accountable for breaking the law. The problem is that the only people who are
willing to do that type of work (policing) are often people who are attracted
to the idea of being able to exert power over other people (sociopathic
inclinations in many cases). If we start prosecuting them and holding them
accountable then it will be really hard to find people to do the job because
there is no advantage to beating and killing people as a police officer if the
consequences for doing it are the same as an ordinary citizen. If that were
the case, the violent sociopaths might as well just go out and take their
chances without the uniform. It is the same reason that pedophiles are
attracted to the priesthood, they know that they can victimize people and be
protected while doing it. Violent sociopaths are attracted to policing for the
same reason, they know that they can exert power over others and be protected.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Also, people who are _not_ violent sociopaths may develop such tendencies by
doing the job (Stanford prison experiment).

------
URSpider94
I don't believe that we do have that right. I believe that the law says we do,
but practically, cops have near-absolute authority to detain and arrest you,
and you'd be hard-pressed to prevail in a civil case of unlawful arrest (and
at that point, you've already been dragged down to the station, had your
fingerprints uploaded to the Federal database, been strip-searched and spent
time in a cell).

I also believe that upper-middle-class white males will have much more success
in exercising that right than members of other societal groups will.

~~~
xiaoma
> _I also believe that upper-middle-class white males will have much more
> success in exercising that right than members of other societal groups
> will._

There is overwhelming evidence that women are treated more leniently, not men.
Here is one example:
[http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2144002](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2144002)

"...large gender gaps favoring women throughout the sentence length
distribution (averaging over 60%), conditional on arrest offense, criminal
history, and other pre-charge observables. Female arrestees are also
significantly likelier to avoid charges and convictions entirely, and twice as
likely to avoid incarceration if convicted."

~~~
bradleyland
The fact that there is a bias between male/female does not suggest that there
is not also bias between races within the male group.

~~~
xiaoma
Very true. There's a mountain of evidence for that, too. If you're young _and_
black _and_ male you get the perfect storm of harsh treatment.

------
guiambros
One of the cases linked is pretty shocking and absurd:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGSrGmHsT8s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGSrGmHsT8s)

What drives me crazy is the corporativism of police union and syndicates,
turning a blind eye even when there's a 3 min video (!) recording the
absurdity of the case.

Here's what Michael Palladino, president of the Detectives' Endowment
Association, said about the case:

" _Detective Cherry is a person of good character and an excellent detective.
He really should not be judged by one isolated incident._ "

Except, it wasn't at all isolated:

" _Over the course of his 14-1 /2 years on the force, Det. Cherry has has
received a total of 13 civilian complaints against him according to a person
with knowledge of the latest complaint._" [1][2]

And, even if it was his first abuse, why should he get a free pass?

[1]
[http://gothamist.com/2015/04/02/cherry_jammed_up.php](http://gothamist.com/2015/04/02/cherry_jammed_up.php)

[2] [http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2015/04/01/nypd-officer-
who-...](http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2015/04/01/nypd-officer-who-berated-
taxi-driver-in-youtube-video-placed-on-desk-duty/)

~~~
spacehome
> "Detective Cherry is a person of good character and an excellent detective.
> He really should not be judged by one isolated incident."

Is this how they treat suspects? You have to marvel at the cognitive
dissonance.

~~~
angry_octet
[https://popehat.com/2015/04/29/cops-we-need-rights-more-
than...](https://popehat.com/2015/04/29/cops-we-need-rights-more-than-you-
citizen/)

------
AdeptusAquinas
In NZ, if a police officer arrested someone because they were verbally abusive
to that officer, he or she would not remain an officer for long.

Though here it might be different? Police always work in pairs and so there is
sort of a peer driven enforcement of proper professional behaviour. Not sure
if thats the same in the states.

------
NeutronBoy
In reality, you have the right to mouth off to _everyone_. But, generally not
a good choice because if you're mouthing off to everyone, there's a good
chance you're just a dickhead. Why not just be civil?

~~~
MBlume
> Sometimes people use “respect” to mean “treating someone like a person” and
> sometimes they use “respect” to mean “treating someone like an authority”

> and sometimes people who are used to being treated like an authority say “if
> you won’t respect me I won’t respect you” and they mean “if you won’t treat
> me like an authority I won’t treat you like a person”

> and they think they’re being fair but they aren’t, and it’s not okay.

[http://stimmyabby.tumblr.com/post/115216522824/sometimes-
peo...](http://stimmyabby.tumblr.com/post/115216522824/sometimes-people-use-
respect-to-mean-treating)

~~~
NeutronBoy
_> and sometimes people who are used to being treated like an authority say
“if you won’t respect me I won’t respect you” and they mean “if you won’t
treat me like an authority I won’t treat you like a person”_

And sometimes, people who think "I'm not going to treat you like an authority"
are in fact not treating that authority like a person. It's a very fine line
between not respecting authority and not respecting a person.

If you disagree with a policeman's _authority_ , the correct way to challenge
that is to acknowledge that you disagree with them, and respond in a
professional manner - formal complaints, courts, whatever. Not by being
difficult to them on the side of the road.

If you disagree with their treatment of you (respect like a person), the
correct way to deal with that still isn't to argue on the side of the road. If
they aren't treating you with respect (as a person), why would you think that
getting into a confrontation with them in that environment is going to change
their mind? (Have you ever seen a sporting referee change their decision after
a player argued with them?)

------
prawn
I said in a previous thread that police should make it a point of pride to be
able to ignore irritated or verbally abusive people. Just play it straight and
robotically to slowly calm people down. I believe a lot of police actually do
this already, but is there on-going training to keep the rest on track?

------
tonyarkles
If you'd like to see an excellent example of professionalism:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IPct574o4w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IPct574o4w)

I'm not convinced that I wouldn't have just punched that kid in the face...

~~~
ap22213
Wow. If that was in the U.S., the cop would have pulled a weapon on the kid
the moment he stepped out of the car.

------
rhino369
And the cop has the legal right to not give you the benefit of the doubt when
you do. The majority of the time you have a hostile interaction with police is
because you broke the law in some minor way.

This is exactly what happened to Sandra Brand. She exercised her right to
mouth off and she got arrested, totally legally for something the police
typically ignore.

You gotta be 100% sure you are clean when you try this. And even then a shitty
cop could just make something up.

~~~
wtallis
> "arrested, totally legally for something the police typically ignore"

That's _not_ totally legal any more, because it violates the fourteenth
amendment. The exercise of your rights does not justify police charging you
with unrelated offenses they would normally let slide; they have to treat all
citizens fairly regardless of the extent to which they choose to do legal
things.

~~~
sokoloff
But no cop (or few cops) are dumb enough to outright say, "I arrested Mr Foo
because he was a mouthy little bastard." Instead, you become just one of the N
drivers for whom an expired inspection sticker or failure to stay in marked
lanes becomes a citation (and maybe a tow) instead of a warning. Good luck
proving a causality between your specific attitude or choice to exercise your
rights and the outcome of the traffic stop.

For the wide variety of cases where there is discretion afforded the officer
in the field, you can antagonize someone who has a great deal of discretion in
how the rest of your day will unfold, or you can be polite and civil.

I choose polite and civil and have had overwhelmingly neutral-to-positive
outcomes from my encounters with police. And I'm talking getting stopped for
passing people across an intersection, 25 over on a highway, expired
registration/inspection, open exhaust, a suspended license, and once even
being caught smoking the tires and doing donuts in a public parking lot. (I
often drove like a jackass a decade ago.)

You can exercise your rights to their fullest extent and take what you get, or
you can "hack" the system to your advantage by being quiet, civil, and
respectful.

~~~
wtallis
Yeah, it's really hard to successfully prosecute a charge like this. But if
you at least _try_ , then a cop like the one in question will probably perjure
himself at some point or some other evidence will turn up that can get the
bully's badge taken away.

------
rokhayakebe
Please, please do not "Mouth Off," or whatever people call it, a cop. I
understand this is much easier said than done, specially when someone is being
disrespectfully and you feel your dignity is at play.

I suggest every time a cop stops you you try to record the entire scene, and
have it be automatically recorded somewhere else in case they try to delete
it.

Even if you do not record, be polite, keep as quiet as you can and take your
time later to complaint and spread the information via every channel you
know/want.

In the moment, anything you say or do, is likely to work against you.

------
tzs
At a traffic stop there are a few things to keep in mind before deciding to
mouth off.

1\. More than half of traffic stops result in a warning, not a ticket. When
the violation is too severe for a warning, in many cases the ticket will be
for a lesser level of offense. For instant, in many states the fine and effect
on insurance rates for speeding is higher if the speed was more than some
threshold over the limit. Often if you are over the threshold, the officer
will write the ticket for just under.

Being rude and obnoxious will greatly increase the chances that you'll get the
ticket, and that it won't be written down to a lesser level offense.

2\. You don't know what the prior stops that day have been like. Maybe the
officer has just dealt with a string of drivers who were rude and obnoxious,
and were trying to pushing him to his limits, and he's managed to barely kkep
his calm. Not knowing this, you could easily push him farther than you
intended.

3\. You don't know who the next person stopped will be. You are putting the
officer in a bad mood for them, which could make it less likely they will get
a warning, or more likely something they do will get them in trouble.

~~~
coldtea
> _2\. You don 't know what the prior stops that day have been like. Maybe the
> officer has just dealt with a string of drivers who were rude and obnoxious,
> and were trying to pushing him to his limits, and he's managed to barely his
> calm. Not knowing this, you could easily push him farther than you
> intended._

In which case he should be fired.

Prior incidents are not an excuse for a supposed professional, and doubly so
if he is paid by the taxpayers.

Would you give the same courtesy to a waiter, a bus or taxi driver, a sales
clerk, etc?

~~~
tzs
What do you mean by "give the same courtesy" to those others? #2 was not about
giving courtesy to anyone.

The fact is that people are more prone to make mistakes when they are angry,
and the more angry they are, the more likely are the mistakes. This is true of
almost all people, professional or not.

If you are purposefully trying to antagonize the officer, you presumably have
some maximum anger level you want to push him to, because you don't want to
push him to the point where he will make mistakes that cause you serious
problems.

The point of #2 is that you don't know what the initial anger level is from
recent prior stops, and so you need to be very careful here for _your_
protection.

In waiter terms, if I wanted to piss off my waiter for some reason, I'd likely
want to piss him off to the point that he has a bad day, and maybe says
something rude to me that gets him in trouble with his manager, but not piss
him off to the point that he's going to urinate in soup. So yes, I'd apply #2
here--and so be very concerned that he might already be angry from prior rude
customers, and so what I expect will just push him to acting verbally against
me might push him to urinated in my soup.

And yes, if he urinates in my soup, he should be fired. There is no amount of
satisfaction I could get from him being fired, though, that I would consider
worth eating urine tainted soup for.

~~~
coldtea
> _What do you mean by "give the same courtesy" to those others? #2 was not
> about giving courtesy to anyone._

The courtesy I refer to is accepting that a cop is allowed to behave
unprofessionaly because he was "angered by someone before". It's not an excuse
for ANY professional to take it out on a customer (or a citizen in the case of
cop or state employee) whether they had "a bad day" or a "bad previous
exchange" or not.

> _The fact is that people are more prone to make mistakes when they are
> angry, and the more angry they are, the more likely are the mistakes. This
> is true of almost all people, professional or not._

And another fact is that people who "are angry" while serving people (whether
customers or citizens) AND let it show, should either be scolded by their
superiors, fined or fired.

Then, they'll know next time they want to "express their anger", to think
twice about it. Instead of, you know, bashing some guy, thretening and beating
a woman, or killing some black kid.

> _The point of #2 is that you don 't know what the initial anger level is
> from recent prior stops, and so you need to be very careful here for your
> protection._

That's true only in places were citizens expect to be treated like shit and
suffer consequences from "angry cops". In most of Western and Nothern Europe,
a cop is supposed to behave professionally at all times, and nobody gives a
fuck about their previous (or even current) "anger level".

Even if you tell them "fuck you" and push them, they should still behave
professionally. Getting "revenge" and "anger mode on" is not professional. And
"hey, whatchagonnado, we're all humans" is no excuse from a professional
carrying a gun and supposed to enforce the law.

That people are afraid to antagonise cops and feel that can legitimately
behave unprofessionally if "antagonized" and depending on their "anger level",
is what gives cops card blanche to do the shit they do in the US (or Latin
America, Africa, etc).

~~~
tzs
>>The fact is that people are more prone to make mistakes when they are angry,
and the more angry they are, the more likely are the mistakes. This is true of
almost all people, professional or not.

> And another fact is that people who "are angry" while serving people
> (whether customers or citizens) AND let it show, should either be scolded by
> their superiors, fined or fired.

Generally there is no way to know that they let it show. That's because in the
massively overwhelming majority of the cases, being in a bad mood will shift
the behavior from something that is common and legal to something else that is
common and legal but less favorable to the person who was stopped. Generally,
the officer won't even know that his bad mood influenced his decision.

------
mixmastamyk
I don't think this is a good idea even if it is your right. Sure, stand up for
yourself, don't grovel, but rudeness doesn't particularly improve any
situation, especially one where you are at a total disadvantage.

------
ageofwant
Cops are people. If you cannot behave like a human you should expect to be
treated like a rabid dog. Yes of course there are bad cops, the number of
precious little entitled uncivil little snowflakes vastly outnumber those.

------
justwannasing
I was always taught to respect others and respect authority. In a civilized
world, you should be civil to everyone. I would no sooner mouth off to a cop
as I would mouth off anyone else. It's disrespectful and speaks volumes about
the person spouting off and nothing about who he's going off on.

Respect and civility to everyone is a higher cause. To even think of doing
otherwise is beyond right thinking.

~~~
zzalpha
And yet, that doesn't make it legal for a cop to arrest you for being uncivil.

There's a big big difference between what's polite and what's legal.

~~~
justwannasing
My point is, every decent, moral, law-abiding citizen is unconcerned about the
need for any article such as this.

~~~
Vendan
Every decent, moral, law-abiding citizen should be outraged that the people
responsible for safeguarding us and upholding the law are violating it on a
regular basis.

~~~
zzalpha
This, right here, is exactly the point.

------
keithblaha
And every cop has the right to punish you for it. Not a real legal right of
course, but one forged through generations of corruption, insecurity, and
abuse of power!

~~~
pille
Insulting a cop is actually a crime in Germany. But ironically, you're
probably in less danger for doing it than you would be in the US, where it's
technically your right, but effectively not.

In Germany, you'd get a citation and a fine. In the US you roll the dice on a
beating, a night or two in jail, and/or a thought-up charge as retaliation.

~~~
yoo1I
This is a common myth. There is no such thing as a "Beamtenbeleidigung"
("Insulting a civil Servant") in German law. Insulting a cop is handled by the
same laws as insulting everyone else. It's just that public prosecutors will
be more likely to actually criminally prosecute, instead of deferring the
insulted party to a civil suit on the matter.

~~~
Mithaldu
That's not a very great explanation of it. In the base of it, insulting
someone breaks StGB §185 and a lawsuit over it can be initated by a civilian
as per StPO §374. Civil servants are different because their superiors have
the ability to sue in their stead as per StGB §77a.

[http://dejure.org/gesetze/StGB/185.html](http://dejure.org/gesetze/StGB/185.html)
\-
[http://dejure.org/gesetze/StPO/374.html](http://dejure.org/gesetze/StPO/374.html)
\-
[http://dejure.org/gesetze/StGB/77a.html](http://dejure.org/gesetze/StGB/77a.html)

------
jqm
So what? We probably also have a legal right to walk up to random people in
the mall and tell them to go fuck themselves. But why would we?

There is a police problem in the country sure. A startling proportion of
police are probably abusive, racist, violent, power hungry and probably stupid
to boot. They are maybe often lazy and dishonest and protected by corrupt
unions. But how does flipping them off make them any less so or do anything in
any way to improve the situation?

Here's the bottom line.. Police officers are people too. They have a pretty
tough job and see a lot of trash. So they likely are a bit jaded already. Cut
them a break and treat them with civility. Work in your community to insure
that police act civilly as well (or else find other professions). Basic
manners on all sides are an important feature of human relations that seems to
be forgotten about in the modern world.

~~~
eropple
_> Cut them a break and treat them with civility._

Nobody with the power to kill citizens with impunity deserves a break of any
kind. That policing is not the most heavily scrutinized job in America is a
_bug_ , and while I believe you have good intentions in entreating that we
treat them nicely, I think that the systemic failures of their culture and
their practice have demonstrated that, if anything, we should be doing the
exact opposite.

I don't assume a cop is going to hassle me, but I'm a well-to-do white male
and I do know how to both play the game and how to correctly assert my legal
rights, just in case. I do assume that that cop will hassle any number of my
friends without those check-marks of privilege and foreknowledge, because,
systematically, _they do exactly that_. That makes more than the barest of
civility a very big ask.

~~~
jqm
Oh, don't misunderstand me. I'm not suggesting bad cop behavior should be "cut
a break". I'm just saying cops are humans... just like you and I. For this
alone they are worth a certain measure of respect.

Also, they have job that requires them to interface with human trash for much
of their working day. Although in a perfect world it shouldn't, this might
tend to make someone a little grumpy and hostile toward others.

I'm not excusing the fact that the job probably attracts more than it's share
of psychopathic bullies. Nor any of the misdeeds. But in order to improve the
situation we should take a realistic and humane look at what cops are seeing.
And we should demand the type of cops that take exactly the same approach
towards their "clients".

~~~
eropple
Only your last sentence rings at all true to me; lots of people deal with very
_bad_ individuals every day, but somehow only the ones whose sworn duty is to
serve and protect are the ones killing people over it. I'll consider more than
the barest of civility appropriate when they as a culture stop killing people
for the temerity to exist while being black.

This isn't a "well, if we're nicer to them, they'll stop hurting people" sort
of thing. Expecting the disempowered to be _humane_ towards those with power
is at best unrealistic and at worst damaging. Should cops--the people in power
--start acting in aggregate like reasonable human beings, then the people
without power--everyone else, but especially minorities and the poor--won't
have a reason to think that cops are likely to be dangerous to them. The
change literally-literally must start with the people with guns and badges,
and frankly calls to the contrary feel like useful idiocy.

~~~
jqm
Probably some cops say (or at least secretly think) exactly the same kinds of
things you are saying about _black people_. "If they would just act right...
until then, fuck em. They don't deserve respect."

What exactly does acting rudely or disrespectfully in either case achieve?

~~~
eropple
The cops have guns and the power to imprison or kill you without even the
pretense of a committed crime. The power imbalance literally-literally leaves
it in their hands. But being nice to them won't keep your head from
intercepting a Maglite should you be of the wrong skin color. So why should
the powerless listen to you at all? Why should I not recognize the pervasive
damage that is being caused and provide support (in the form of social
approval) to them?

Every action that any person ever takes is inherently political in the social
context. What you advocate hurts the people least able to afford that hurt,
and that's really troubling. Calling for niceties and "respect" to the members
of a culture that can't stop killing fellow Americans, while sounding very
nice, is tantamount to calling for better servile behaviour. And maybe that
doesn't trouble you, but it does trouble me.

