Keeping your cool

Status
Not open for further replies.

beachwalker

Member
Joined
Oct 18, 2009
Messages
47
Location
Lake Ozarks
Just read one of the posts and viewed the video of a person being harassed, threatened, and arrested by an unprofessional police officer. It went on for several minutes and the person receiving the treatment handled it well in my opinion. Do any of wonder if you'd be able to keep your cool in that situation?
Any tricks on not letting an _____ get to you?
 
Just realize that getting angry and perturbed will only make you look like the bad guy. If you keep your cool and learn to say only what you have to say it's a lot easier to make a case against an idiot who is abusing the system.
In short....smile and nod, smile and nod.
 
Act calm and compliant and discretely/quietly start your tape recorder, ipod/iphone audio recorder, or ipod/iphone video recorder. Gathering evidence for the coming hearings/trial will help change things.
 
All that guy in the video had to do was think about how much money he was going to make by keeping his cool as long as the dashboard cam was working... J/K- I wouldn't be thinking that at all. Id just be as cooperative as possible and hope to get out of that situation as soon as possible, even if it meant going to jail for a couple of hours...
 
Act calm and compliant and discretely/quietly start your tape recorder, ipod/iphone audio recorder, or ipod/iphone video recorder. Gathering evidence for the coming hearings/trial will help change things.

In alot of states, its illegal to record a police officer on duty.
 
Good advice. Smile, don't fight, do not argue.

The best advice would be to prepare yourself as best as you can for the possibility of such negative encounters. Study what you can, must, should, and should NOT say, and then try to keep your brain engaged and stick to those concepts.

Clamming up completely isn't the very best choice (unless it is the best choice FOR YOU due to your personality and knowledge) but running on at the mouth -- either with hostility or acquiescence -- is much worse.

The classic responses, "Am I under arrest?" "I don't consent to any searches," and even "I would love to help you officer, but I think I should speak to my lawyer before making any further statements," and so forth, repeated firmly and calmly should serve to put the officer on notice that you probably won't make a convenient mistake giving him cause to arrest you, make an extensive search, and/or otherwise hassle you further.

It just might also plant a seed in his mind that you're probably knowledgeable about your rights enough to give him trouble later with IA and his Chief if he really steps over the line.

It is terribly embarrassing, frustrating, and enraging to be treated unfairly and with such hostility by any person of authority, but take heart in the fact that we live in a place where such abuses are about as limited as they can be, are heavily officially investigated and reported upon, and the worst cop out there isn't going to KILL you just 'cause he doesn't like you. (There are parts of the world where that might not be so...)

Keep positive, focus on being the calm one -- the "bigger" man. Comply with everything you MUST comply with, minimize the damage you do yourself, and live to fight the battle more effectively, later, through official channels.
 
Just read one of the posts and viewed the video of a person being harassed, threatened, and arrested by an unprofessional police officer. It went on for several minutes and the person receiving the treatment handled it well in my opinion. Do any of wonder if you'd be able to keep your cool in that situation?
Any tricks on not letting an _____ get to you?

If it's the video I'm thinking of I would probably be scared <deleted>less since it's obvious I was dealing with someone who's completely taken leave of their rational thought processes. IMO it wasn't a case of "Letting an ________ get to you." It was dealing with an armed and highly dangerous lunatic that could probably go ahead and put 10 rds from his Glock .40 into me and walk away scot free like they usually do. The driver didn't know the encounter was being recorded.

I'm thinking 'rhoid rage myself. There's really no dealing with those.

But yeah.... "Yes sir" "No sir" etc.

"I want to talk to my lawyer" is the best... ;)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Seems like there are a lot of those types in Law Enforcement anymore. It's sad that somehow the motto of our police went from "To Protect and Serve" to "To Harass and Arrest".
 
Any tricks on not letting an _____ get to you?
Sure: realize that he has power of arrest, back-up, and a gun.

You can win this confrontation, but not there on the street. He wins there, and if he's wronged you, you take him to court. Agree with the advice oon using the proper words: don't consent, politely stand on your rights, comply if arrested.

The only reason to get into a fight is to win. Don't start one you can't.
 
If you can handle the pressure of what's going on with such an officer, remember: you being wrong makes him right. If you resist arrest or give in to an impulse to react to what he's doing, he can get very nasty and forceful then, and then you'll maybe have actually committed a crime that you can be punished for.

Not fair and not really right, but I've had a number of LEOs tell me that. Best thing is to take whatever Officer Barbrady hands out, keep your cool as everyone else here says, and then let your lawyer rip him and his dept a new one afterwards. Don't put yourself into the situation of giving them a real violation they can punish you for.
 
...I'm thinking 'rhoid rage myself. There's really QUOTE]

Hmmm... during the discussions of the Ohio incident, I heard the term 'roid rage' bandied about, implying that this officer might be taking anabolic steroids and suferring the attendant roughening of his temperament.

You've apparently come up with a new angle - perhaps implying the officer instead has "hemmorhoid rage" - understandable when you think about all of those hours seated in a patrol car...
 
you know, im not gonna lie.......but if that situation happened to me.......i think i would have one hell of a time keeping quiet.

especially when the officer said " you know what i should have done, i should have taken a step back and put 10 rounds center mass..........execute you for being stupid....."


im pretty sure at that point i would have flipped out on him...i dont think ide be able not to say anything..........most likely leading to me being peppersprayed and beaten.
 
It was dealing with an armed and highly dangerous lunatic that could probably go ahead and put 10 rds from his Glock .40 into me and walk away scot free like they usually do.
Hold on! Back up the hyperbole truck just a bit. ;) No part of the US is such an out-of-control, unaccountable, fascist society that any police officer could "walk away scot free" from any shooting, any time. Every time an officer fires their weapon there is an investigation and a lot of paperwork. And, no matter how much you believe the local cops get away with -- murder is not something that any jurisdiction will turn it's head to, and ignore.

This is a sad, scary scene, but let's not get carried away. This isn't a 3rd World dictatorship. Our police officers are held to a tough standard, and for the most part, they meet that standard.

The driver didn't know the encounter was being recorded.
That seems unlikely these days. Dash-cams are pretty universal both for the protection of the officers, and the public.
 
My high school US history teacher (also a lawyer) summed it up pretty well.

"The police have sticks and guns. The only people they are gonna call have more sticks and guns, or an ambulance if they use the sticks and guns on you. You're not going to win a fight with the police unless you do it in court."
 
Hold on! Back up the hyperbole truck just a bit. No part of the US is such an out-of-control, unaccountable, fascist society that any police officer could "walk away scot free" from any shooting, any time. Every time an officer fires their weapon there is an investigation and a lot of paperwork. And, no matter how much you believe the local cops get away with -- murder is not something that any jurisdiction will turn it's head to, and ignore.

Sam- I'm not a cop basher by any means but there have been a couple of things that have happened in the last couple of years in Georgia where I personally believe justice was not served. Sometimes police officers do things they shouldn't & often times it gets swept under the rug & gotten away with. I don't have a link handy right now & I don't have time to dig it up but I could cite a couple of things that have happened in Georgia. It is scary really.
 
http://policecrimes.com/

The stories of police abuse we hear about are probably only a small percentage although i'm sure dashboard cams have helped in reducing such events. It may not be as bad here as 1930s germany but that's not much of a standard. I would be curious how we rate to other western democracies in incidents of police misconduct. My state actually has laws that specifically say one can defend themself with force if LE use excessive force against them but good luck with that one. Thats not to say this case was excessive force. As others have said the courts are one's best bet although justice is anything but guaranteed. The ACLU is very active in fighting just this kind of thing although certain media outlets falsely portray them as only being active in secularist issues. There are other groups out there as well one can support if they do not like the ACLU.

As a teenager i was slammed against a car by a cop and told to my face i have no rights after simply asking "why" after he said he was going to search me. Its a long story but basically a friend of mine had been in a fist fight and i was there but not a participant. I did not resist or refuse as i had no time to before i was assaulted. To this day I regret not filing a suit given the number of witnesses who were there.

I feel the worst for women who get pulled over at night in uninhabitated areas. I've heard it be recomended that they keep the car running and window cracked and request the cop follow them to a populated area but don't know the legalities of such action. There was a police chief indicted a couple of years ago for raping a woman he pulled over in OK i think.
 
Last edited:
I'm not so sure about the advice to smile. When I got pulled over for a traffic violation I made the mistake of smiling. "What are you smiling at?" " You think it's funny?" Blah bah blah. I took it to court and had it thrown out. So blah blah blah yourself. ;)
 
Youtube is full of videos with Cops acting out of line and then lying about the situation later. No statistics but for every lunatic who wears a badge there are surly 100s that do the best job they can with respect to an individuals rights.

Dunno if it is the modern age of communication or authorities lying, ETC ETC that has made us more cynical; hey maybe television dramas? Either way the Cop in question should be shamed and fired and never be allowed to carry a firearm again, at the very least IMO. Someone or some occupation that repeatedly abuses should not be surprised when they are far enough down the food chain that when their time comes for abuse it will be a doozy ( Karma?).

We as citizens only have the courts for redress; sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't just depends on who has the video record, the Judge and hopefully the truth..
 
My mom taught me that one way to deal with someone getting up in your face and shouting was to start speaking more and more quietly as respectfully as possible. She said that it would infuriate them. Which on the one hand in this situation isn't a desirable thing, on the other hand if you have a camera/recording device running it will help in court show you being as cooperative as possible. Just something to ponder.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top