Dealing with the Police

Most of the time, the police would not stop you for any unjust reason. The majority of the cases in which the situation gets to the stage in which you find yourself in handcuffs could be avoided if you have gotten an education as to how to deal with the police. I have being stopped a lot of times and I have had the police call on me a few times for one reason or the other. In the majority of the cases the situation did not get to the point of you being arrested if you have been educated. The Police force goes through a training program in which they are told on how to react on various situations. They are doing their job and they would get nasty at times if they demand for something simple as for you to show them your ID card and you start making smart comments to them.

I read an article on the Washington Post about an African American that was arrested and had to spend the night in jail because of a twenty five dollar traffic ticket that he had forgotten to pay due to one reason or the other.

Harvard professor Louise Gates got arrested at his own home recently and this has brought out the issue of how African Americans and Hispanics are dealt with in various communities throughout the nation by the police. There are my tips on how to deal with the police if you ever happen to find yourself in a situation involving them.

1-Stay calm.

This is like the number one way to get away easily when dealing with them. If you are nervous while talking to them or you are acting funny, then they know that you are trying to hide something from them and they would react according.

2-Do what they demand you to do.

If they are asking you for your driver license and car registration, provide it to them. What they do is they go to their computer and check to make sure that you are not a wanted person or you do no have any outstanding traffic tickets. If you know that you are clean, give them the document and they would come back in a couple of minutes after checking their computers and explained to you why you got stopped the first place. A few of them might asked you to do something ridiculous like saying the alphabet and you do it and they would explained to you why you are being pulled over and you would be out of the situation. The details about the Professors case are still coming out and it would be nice to wait for some time to get all the facts before trying to go prosecute all the police men.

3-If they decide to put you under arrest do not get nasty with them.

The police might decide to arrest you after pulling you over for one reason or the order. What they do at this time is they call for backup. Once you find yourself is this type of a situation, you know you are screwed and there is nothing you can do about it. This is not the end of the world. The US has a great judiciary system and you would get your day in court. Spending a night in jail is bad, but if you decide to fight them and resist arrest, you only aggravate the situation.

The police are not above the law and if you think that you were not treated fairly during a traffic stop or the police harassed you for one reason or the other you can report them to the right authority in your county. There are authorities that deal with police brutality and if you lay a legitimate complain, somebody would look into it. Remember, they are the ones that are there to uphold the law and they have been giving guidelines to follow. They are also armed and you do not want to get yourself in a situation in which you are being shot at. Some innocent individuals have being killed for trying to proof tough and the law would give the police officer the benefit of doubt in a court of law. If you have nothing to hide, that would come out in court. I personally had a situation in which the police officer acted out of hand but the charges against me were all thrown out once we got to court. As I walk out of the courtroom you could see the embarrassment at the officer's face in the courthouse.