Sweet and Sour: are threats and lies acceptable practice in policing?

“If we have to get a warrant, we’re going to come back when you’re not expecting it, we’re going to park in front of your house, where all your neighbors can see, we’re gonna bust in your door with a battering ram, we’re gonna shoot and kill your dogs, who are my family, and then we’re going to ransack your house looking for these people.”

Police threaten to kill mans dogs

So that's a pretty extreme example of what happens every hour of every day. The police want something from you, access, compliance, information.... whatever, so they threaten you with arrest, detainment or, as in this case, an all out paramilitary assault.

The other tactic is the lie that things will get better. This will all go away or "they'll" take it easy on you or "we know you didn't mean it" type of line.

I've experienced both flavors myself on more than one occasion. Threats that the wrath of god would befall my head and promises that if I just bent over and grabbed my ankles sunshine and rainbows would fly out.

I guess for the complete dullards out there such strategies may be effective.

So is this acceptable? And if so how can an organization that relies on threats and lies be seen as a "good" organization?

I suppose if you absolutely knew the subject was guilty we'd all agree that threats and lies were fine. The guys guilty after all, right? But we don't know. So it isnt just the rapist on the corner being threatened with bodily harm, it's your wife, mother, son, father. It's you.

reply to post by thisguyrighthere


No.
Threats and intimidation are not acceptable.
We need to start stepping up and telling the badged bullies to back down.
If it's wrong for a cop to do something without a badge it is twice as wrong to do it while hiding behind one.

I think once Google glasses are available the police will start acting like human beings.

So, do we all have to start buying and wearing these now to record our interactions with police?


Find it on EBay Now!

reply to post by Krakatoa


A good number of the departments are moving over to audio/video as I've understood it. As much to clear cops of false claims, which cost a city a fortune every year, as to get the bad ones off the street before they cost even more. Progress isn't consistent, but there is some around.

VforVendettea
reply to post by thisguyrighthere

 

No.
Threats and intimidation are not acceptable.
We need to start stepping up and telling the badged bullies to back down.
If it's wrong for a cop to do something without a badge it is twice as wrong to do it while hiding behind one.

I think once Google glasses are available the police will start acting like human beings.

I totally agree that threats and intimidation are not acceptable.
However I totally disagree that the police will ever start acting like human beings.
They have had too much protection and power for too long and now consider themselves to be above the laws that they were hired to enforce.

BTW this is a generalization there are police officers that are good, bad and everything in between.
It just seems to me that the bad and indifferent out number the good.

That's never acceptable. What it boarders on is corruption and abuse. If local PDs won't adopt having cameras on their officers, then we'll have to have them around our homes and cars and or on person.

If I cannot make terroristic threats, nobody else should be able to.
But I tell you, harm my dogs and the war starts.
And I have no taboos either.

Okay. So nobody thinks it's acceptable for police to threaten or lie in an attempt to get what they want.

So why do so many do it? Are they just mimicking what they see in the movies or are they actually trained to lie and threaten as a viable method of investigation?

This is funny here:

By the 1950s, confessions were considered involuntary not only if police beat the suspect, but also if they held a suspect for an unnecessarily extended period of time, deprived him of sleep, food, water or bathroom facilities, promised some benefit if the suspect confessed or threatened some harm if he didn't.

These methods were deemed illegal by various court rulings.

So they were replaced with:

In looking for a replacement for illegal forms of coercion, police turned to fairly basic psychological techniques like the time-honored "good cop bad cop" routine, in which one detective browbeats the suspect and the other pretends to be looking out for him. People tend to trust and talk to someone they perceive as their protector. Another basic technique is maximization, in which the police try to scare the suspect into talking by telling him all of the horrible things he'll face if he's convicted of the crime in a court of law.

Police Interrogation

So what exactly is the difference?

Threats and promises were ruled illegal so now the police have to use threats and promises? I don't get it.

The local PD just got their used MRAP?? from the government and the first thing someone did was explain to them it was too heavy to take off the main roads. Then the road comission gave them a map of the roads it could travel on, then the local press informed them that of the last 5 times they could have used it the incidenses were all on roads it couldn't travel. They even have to build a new garage just for it but thats just $100k because they can't drive it into the police parking lot because it's too heavy. But hey they have one!!