Originally Posted by CDSmith

I won't take sides, just a few thoughts on this if I may...

1. Cops are not your friends. Whether you are the one they're coming to see or the one they are coming to help, or even if you're just a guy standing in the vicinity, you are SUSPECT. Notice I didn't say "A suspect". Meaning you are under suspicion at all times. Period. They're not there to be your friend, they're there to do a job.

2. Knowing this, that you are suspect, it would behoove you to simply cooperate with them. Don't try to double talk them, don't babble your words or waste their time or dick them around in any way, just play it straight and do what you're told.

3. If after you've fully cooperated and they're gone you feel your 'rights' have been violated or they handled the situation poorly in any way, let your lawyer do your mouthing off for you. That's their job. If you're right and the cop is wrong they'll get at the very least a black mark on their service record, and in the more egregious cases they'll get worse.


Lloyd is definitely right about one thing: Cops that don't treat every traffic stop, every door they knock on, every person they have an on-the-scene interraction with as potentially dangerous, runs the risk of getting injured or killed. I know. During my hospital working days I had several cops as patients who were injured in the line of duty. One guy was shot three times during a routine traffic stop and left for dead on the side of the highway.

As a cop you never know who or what you're dealing with until you know. You know?