Tag Archive for 'police'

Surviving a Police Interrogation.

handcuffs.jpgLast year, I posted a video on How Not to Get Arrested. Well, assuming you screwed the pooch on that part, you are going to get taken into the station, booked, and probably interrogated. At that point the MOST important thing you can do is remain silent and ask for a lawyer. In law school, one of my favorite classes was Criminal Procedure. The professor taught us about all of the sneaky tricks cops use to induce confessions, which is the most surefire way to get a conviction. I recently came across an article detailing in laymen’s terms how these interrogations are conducted to maximize the likelihood of a confession.

How Police Interrogations Work.

The article is fascinating for all the psychological tricks the police use to induce confessions. But if you need to learn only one thing from the article, it is this list:
Five Techniques of Surviving a Police Interrogation (Without Confessing)

  1. Remain silent.
  2. Remain silent!
  3. Imagine the words “I invoke my right to remain silent” painted on the wall, and stare at them throughout the interrogation.
  4. Momentarily break your silence to ask for counsel. When you ask for a lawyer, the interrogation MUST stop.
  5. Cultivate hatred for your interrogator so you don’t fall into his traps and start talking.

When You’ve Got Company The Just Cause Law Collective warns that if you’re arrested with friends, you’ve got to keep a cool head. Decide beforehand that no one’s going to say a word until everyone has a lawyer, and remind yourself that police will try to play on the natural paranoia that arises when people are separated. The Collective offers a further warning regarding a group arrest: When you have your strategy discussion, don’t do it in the back seat of a police car. If the officers stuffed you all into one car and walked away, they’re recording you.

How NOT to Get Arrested

Flex Your Rights has a great video on, you guessed it, flexing your rights in the face of typical police encounters. They go through routine traffic stops, street encounters, and home encounters. As an attorney, I found their presentation very accurate. The peculiarities of each encounter will differ from your own, so you have to be really careful. Everyone should watch this video the entire way through.