Cops and Lying

[Kyle]

I've always taken for granted that if you lie to the cops, you can be charged with obstructing an investigation (or other regional variants of the same thing). Essentially, it's a crime to lie to the cops.

But cops are allowed to lie to us.

In fact, cops are allowed to detain and interrogate you (without charging you) and lie to you about whatever they want- witnesses, evidence, whatever. So why is it a crime if we lie to the cops? Or, conversely, why is it not a crime for cops to lie to us?

I understand that we want police to perform their crucial jobs and have the power to enforce their authority to do that. I understand that, for policy reasons, we don't want people lying to cops and that in some circumstances we want cops to lie to people (e.g., undercover cops). But I'm re-evaluating my position on this. And I don't really know where I land on it yet.

I'm open to thoughts on it.

[bralbovsky]

Punching down...never ok.

Circumstances of legit cop lying, sting operations, infiltration, are not the same as having someone in an interrogation room, where the power dynamic is very different.

It reeks of abuse of power.

[Akiva]

Now that almost everyone has a video camera on them at all times, we also know that cops lie about what happened--a lot. It seems like every time there's a big crime, cops are forced to "update" their accounts at least, often more than that. Because they lie about what happened.

[Kyle]

Now that almost everyone has a video camera on them at all times, we also know that cops lie about what happened--a lot. It seems like every time there's a big crime, cops are forced to "update" their accounts at least, often more than that. Because they lie about what happened.

This is a little different than the context we discussed, but it also brings up a good point. If a cop lies in an investigation into their own misdeeds, are they held up to the same standards as a non-cop who is alleged to have "impeded an investigation"? Because I suspect that in reality they are not.

[Kyle]

I also think Bill brings up a good point. It's not like we can't draw boundaries to when it is okay to lie for a cop and when it is not. Here's a start: if someone is being detained, you can't lie to them. Like part of your Miranda rights.

[zen]

This reminds me of the classic scenario from a crime drama where the cops take the two suspects into separate rooms to question them and after someone comes in to whisper something to the interrogator, he tells the suspect that his buddy already rolled over and pinned the crime all on him, so unless he wants to take the fall, he should start talking. These scenes always have a decided lack of a lawyer present as well. I've always figured these were either poor writing or based on bad police work since any testimony taken in that way should be easily thrown out, especially if the suspects weren't given the opportunity to wait for a lawyer. (Then again, how many people can afford a decent lawyer?)

[Kyle]

This reminds me of the classic scenario from a crime drama where the cops take the two suspects into separate rooms to question them and after someone comes in to whisper something to the interrogator, he tells the suspect that his buddy already rolled over and pinned the crime all on him, so unless he wants to take the fall, he should start talking. These scenes always have a decided lack of a lawyer present as well. I've always figured these were either poor writing or based on bad police work since any testimony taken in that way should be easily thrown out, especially if the suspects weren't given the opportunity to wait for a lawyer. (Then again, how many people can afford a decent lawyer?)

This happens ALL THE TIME. And by "this," I mean:

1) Cops interrogate multiple suspects simultaneously in exactly the way you describe. It doesn't come without risks, so isn't as brazen as you say. Often it's "Other Guy says you were there."

2) People talk to cops all the time without lawyers. "People that have nothing to hide don't need lawyers." And "If you don't want to cooperate, that's fine."

[zen]

This reminds me of the classic scenario from a crime drama where the cops take the two suspects into separate rooms to question them and after someone comes in to whisper something to the interrogator, he tells the suspect that his buddy already rolled over and pinned the crime all on him, so unless he wants to take the fall, he should start talking. These scenes always have a decided lack of a lawyer present as well. I've always figured these were either poor writing or based on bad police work since any testimony taken in that way should be easily thrown out, especially if the suspects weren't given the opportunity to wait for a lawyer. (Then again, how many people can afford a decent lawyer?)

This happens ALL THE TIME. And by "this," I mean:

1) Cops interrogate multiple suspects simultaneously in exactly the way you describe. It doesn't come without risks, so isn't as brazen as you say. Often it's "Other Guy says you were there."

2) People talk to cops all the time without lawyers. "People that have nothing to hide don't need lawyers." And "If you don't want to cooperate, that's fine."

I don't know why I thought art wasn't imitating life... After all, I grew up in a town that had a reputation for police brutality and pretty much lived in fear of getting pulled over by the cops when I was a teenager because I had the same last name as my brother, who was one of their favorite punching bags. I had the joy of getting a phone call to pick him up from the station on a Friday night when I was 16 or 17 and he had been taken in for "drunk driving". When I got there, they warned me that he had "gotten in a fight" with some other guys at the football game before they brought him in and he was pretty beat up. On the way to pick up his car, which he insisted on getting, he told me what happened:

He had gone by the football game to hang with some friends before going to the bowling alley in the city to sub for our parent's team for the night and had a few drinks. (He was an active alcoholic at the time.) When he was leaving to go to the bowling alley, he was stopped on the way to his car by a group of police officers who wouldn't let him get to his car. Granted, he had been drinking and shouldn't have been driving, but they proceeded to beat him up and take him in for drunk driving, which was what they told me he had been charged with. He never opened the car door.

How do I know I can trust the narrative of my alcoholic brother in this instance? Well...
1. His car WAS parked deep in the parking area at the football stadium, in a parking spot. If he'd been pulled over and taken into the drunk tank, they should have impounded the car.
2. He was underage. They could have charged him with just being drunk. If he resisted arrest, they could have charged him with that. But because of the department's known history with police brutality, including having lost lawsuits to people who were drunk when they were beaten, my guess is that they told me they charged him with a crime he hadn't committed, that day, in order to avoid a charge that would expose the fact that they had beaten him up.
3. As far as I recall, he didn't actually get a ticket that time. He was just hauled into the station I had to come get him... and my parent's bowling team was short a man.

If that had been the only incident he'd had with the police in our home town that would be bad enough, but his issues with the local cops started when he was 16 and only got worse as his alcoholism got worse.

In a very real sense, those years have colored my perception of every news story about police brutality I have seen as an adult. I experienced, firsthand, the way half-truths and outright lies can easily be given out as facts by cops who don't want their actions questioned.

[Phoebe]

I don't mind the lying per se; what I would like to see is reform of the brutality and unethical interrogation tactics. Telling someone a lie to encourage them to talk or confess feels like fair game to me. Holding people in an interrogation room for 6 hours without an attorney or a break, or banging them around in the back of a van (occasionally killing people) is over the edge into brutality and madness.

[Mike]

I don't even think a little lying in interrogation is acceptable. Police can say anything they want without repercussions, and anyone else is committing a crime if they try the same thing. Allowing "a little" allows everything. There's no clear line to draw that can't be pushed to the extreme by eager cops, prosecutors, and judges who are all on the same team and making all the rules.

[Phoebe]

I wish the bodycam from the arrest of the reporter in E Palestine OH would be a widely viewed national story. It shows yet another example of widespread phenomena: The police claiming someone resisted arrest or was the source of the problem when in fact the tape shows the person was the victim of other people's aggression and did not resist arrest at all; The use of excessive violence to accomplish the arrest; The wrongful decision to arrest someone in the first place; The targeting of a black person for not having the right to be in the space even though they had the same right as anyone else; the way petty authorities get emotional about the need to flex their petty authority. But perhaps the most serious and disturbing element was that the police were immediately ready to destroy the body cam footage if instructed! Wow. And I imagine that the whole thing would go on very differently had it not been such a public place where multiple people were filming. As it was they tried to make sure that nobody else could get access to see what was actually happening.