[The Final Dakar]

I’m a cop. If you don’t want to get hurt, don’t challenge me. - The Washington Post

Even though it might sound harsh and impolitic, here is the bottom line: if you don’t want to get shot, tased, pepper-sprayed, struck with a baton or thrown to the ground, just do what I tell you. Don’t argue with me, don’t call me names, don’t tell me that I can’t stop you, don’t say I’m a racist pig, don’t threaten that you’ll sue me and take away my badge. Don’t scream at me that you pay my salary, and don’t even think of aggressively walking towards me. Most field stops are complete in minutes. How difficult is it to cooperate for that long?

"Don't try to reason with me, I can kill you."

[reader50]

Sweet. Bet that works great for picking up girls too.

[subego]

The whole editorial is poorly structured, and despite his claim of being impolitic, he's definitely trying to cover his ass WRT the other police who read it.

I'm not bound by that, so I'll cut through his bullshit.

If a cop starts hassling you, said cop is going to fall into one of two basic categories.

Category one are people trying to do a job. A really shitty job. One shitty aspect is there's often pressure from management to mess with likely innocent people due to the way they dress, or the color of their skin.

Category two are people you do not want to **** with, because they're ****ing psychopaths.


You most certainly want to follow the editorial's advice when confronted by category two. With category one, I think there is a certain onus on a citizen to think hard before they go outside the bounds of the editorial's advice, especially considering the likelihood they'll get what they want out of doing so.

Then fold in there's no real way to know if you're dealing with a category one or category two.

[subego]

To put it another way, the more a cop deserves to be given a hard time, the more risky (and hence less advisable) it becomes to do so.

[The Final Dakar]

I think the point is, people shouldn't feel like a ****ing hostage when dealing with the police.

[subego]

Don't mistake me rephrasing his argument as implying I like the situation. I don't. It's completely ass-backwards.