Staying Clear & Careful When Dealing With The Police *

*This is a collaborative post.

It is fortunate that the internet has shone a light on bad apples within the police, those who exercise their power for intense personal pleasure rather than being mindful and careful in a situation. While this is a vast minority of police officers, there are those that act in this way. Despite this fortune of the internet exposing said actions, it is unfortunate they happen in the first place, and also dreadfully sad that the majority of fantastic, courageous policemen and women have the black stain of their actions hanging over them.

However, it is important to understand your rights when dealing with the police, particularly when heading abroad to a country you are not completely well versed in. Staying clear, careful and communicative whenever dealing with the police is a worthwhile consideration, and can sometimes help you out of a sticky situation due to a lack of communication. But communication may not always be a panacea, and taking further respectful and legal methods to help yourself is important. 

Please consider the following:

Learn Your Rights

It’s important to learn your rights. For example, calling upon solicitors if needing to talk to the police is an important right afforded to you. If you are harmed by the police and you consider this to border closer to the definition of brutality, Hupy & Abraham injury attorneys can help you seek legal counsel and develop a better approach of seeking justice. Learning your rights is an important thing to do, not so you can argue with the police over every single little point, but so you can make them clear if they are being infringed. Too often we see YouTube videos of those who record the police and try to taunt them with their knowledge of their rights, and yet all this does is provoke a vindictive attitude on both sides. However, if you do learn your rights, you are better equipped for a variety of situations.

Dashcam & Home Footage

If stopped by the police, or they are knocking on your door, having a working dashcam or security footage with audio can help you prove the conversation that took place. Not all police wear body cams, and so sometimes might wish to press their authority over you despite having little recourse for doing so. We need to make it emphatically clear that this is a huge rarity, but it does happen. Having this together can help you prove your respectful compliance should an issue be raised against you.

Be Respectful

Remember, the police are people just like you or I, except tasked with an extremely difficult job. They can make mistakes, just as you can. However, aggression will never win. You need to be respectful, polite and open to communication if requested. If you do this, 99.99% of the time you will be treated with complete respect in return, and if using the previous advice, the bad apples can be weeded out here. It’s techniques such as this that can keep both parties safe.

With this advice, staying clear and careful when talking to the police can help the relationship work on both sides, no matter what situation you find yourself in.