I was going to post this as a comment, but it was in an anarchism community, and I figured some sections of it might be unacceptable there. Hence, new post.
Here’s a guideline of how to interact with cops. There are more or less three modes, depending on your read of the situation. Cops are not always the enemy or the maniacal whole-job-is-making-evil thugs that Lemmy sometimes makes them out to be. It really is bad for people to get mugged or their cars broken into, and they’re the solution our society has come up with to minimize the amount of it that happens. It’s not always a bad thing.
If you find yourself talking to the cops, there are more or less three ways:
- They’re there to solve a real problem. Someone’s car got broken into, someone got beat up. Just talk with them. Tell them what you know, help them figure out the situation. In almost all of the US, their effect on the problem will be positive, and it’ll be a lot more positive if they have a good grasp of what happened. If, in your opinion, the person they’re trying to catch really did do something that warrants a law enforcement response, then give them a hand. Use your judgement as to whether that’s warranted of course, and your impression of the justice level in your local area, since it varies quite a lot in the US.
- They’re there for you. Shut the fuck up. Don’t say a goddamned word. It doesn’t even matter if you didn’t do it. Don’t explain. Shut the fuck up. Be polite, obey lawful orders, definitely don’t fight them or you’ll get a felony and might also get injured or worse, but tell them that if you’re suspected of a crime, then you’d like to talk to a lawyer, and you have nothing else to say. And then, shut the fuck up and cooperate. Maybe you want to go as far as “Were you shoplifting?” “What? No. That wasn’t me, man.” But any further explanation than that, just leave it alone. Definitely don’t make something up on the spot, to make yourself sound innocent, if you did do it. For the love of God, don’t do that.
- They’re there for someone who didn’t do anything wrong. The reason for this post is, anything and everything with ICE and immigration falls into this category. Some things with local cops will, also. Just be unhelpful and simple. No, I didn’t see anything. I don’t know. I’m not sure. Be vague. Don’t get creative, keep it simple, don’t refuse to give your ID or otherwise antagonize them or commit minor crimes of obstruction, but just do your best imitation of someone who just fell from the sky. “So you’ve NEVER MET your neighbor. Your neighbor across the hall.” “Nope.” “Are you sure?” “Yeah, I don’t know.” “I mean, she gave us your name, she said she’d talked to you.” “I don’t know, I don’t remember that.” Don’t embellish. Don’t explain why. Just calmly let the silence linger and the pressure build up, without adding extra words.
Like I said, everything with ICE or other immigration authorities falls into the third category. No exceptions. Everything. The same applies with any type of federal law enforcement, I suspect, for the next few years.
This is true, although you have a constitutional right to a lawyer even if you have no money.
Either way, if they want to detain and question you, that’s arrest - You’re going to jail, you’ll need to get bail which is going to be somewhere between $100 and $20,000, probably, otherwise you’re not getting out of jail.
And nothing you say to a cop from the initial contact to the day you walk out a free person is going to help you. The best it can possibly do is not make anything worse, and that’s unlikely.
The reason you have to have a lawyer is that the lawyer is supposed to know what they’re allowed to ask you and what to do to get you out. (Some lawyers aren’t as good as others, but any honest lawyer knows these basics. - or they can ask their office.)
Now, there are simple things you can do like; be cool, polite, possibly de-escalate the situation with some empathy, but if they start asking you more than one or two questions, you need to forget everything that’s ever happened ever, immediatley. You do not remember. After the third question, just shut up and shrug.
You’re not going to talk your way out of it, and they’ll take any opportunity to take any sound you’ve uttered and turn it into some other charge against you - most people get accused of five to twenty charges for the same thing so the DA can look effective and make the total jail time seem as scary as possible.
If you gave them nothing, and they have nothing, you are in the best position possible.
Legal aid is overworked and underpaid. At best you’ll get a tiny portion of the lawyer’s time, and at worst they’ll throw you under the bus so they can make a deal for another client who is in a worse situation.
They absolutely are overworked and underpaid, but they’re choosing to get paid less to help people with no money who are getting fucked over by the system. For this they get accused of being crooked and stupid and everyone has to masturbate in front of them and enough shit that you or I would never put up with. They are the single ray of hope or at least human support for people who are losing their freedom and often a lot more, and they should get more respect.
Making a deal to help another client will get them disbarred and anyone who knows of such a thing should file a bar complaint immedately.
The most common situation is the accused actually did the alleged thing, then admitted it, then decided they didn’t want to admit it after that and there is literally nothing the lawyer can do at that point. This is why it’s incredibly important to not say anything. “Talk to my lawyer”.