6 ms·

If an officer says "Get out of the car please." You can ask if it's a question or an order. If it's an order, get out of the car. White, black, asian, or his

If an officer says "Get out of the car please." You can ask if it's a question or an order. If it's an order, get out of the car. White, black, asian, or hispanic, once that order is given, you're getting out of the car one way or another. If you really think the order was given unlawfully, take it to court where these things can be debated.

techbio 11y ago
YANAL
- IanDrake 11y ago
  I'm not. Though, if you ask an officer of the law, you'll be told there is nothing wrong with civilly asking for clarification and/or verbalizing that you disagree (but will comply).
justaman 11y ago
You are 100x more likely to end the encounter in your favor if you do as the officer says. Do not, under any circumstance, make the officer feel uncomfortable. If you play nice, so will they. Always respect/practice the 4th.
- thomnottom 11y ago
  So you really think that all of the people recently murdered by police officers would be fine if they had just "behaved"?
  - freehunter 11y ago
    All? No. He never said all, and that's an unfair way you're phrasing the argument. You're deliberately setting it up so that anyone who disagrees with you is immediately painted as blaming the victim. That's not what this discussion is about and you know it, so shame on you. He said you're more likely to. But in some cases, the situation could have been improved to the point where the outcome could have been completely different if the person had complied with the officer. I'm not saying the cop was right in any of the cases, but if I see a semi truck barreling down the freeway into oncoming traffic... I have the right-of-way because I'm in the correct lane, but you'd better believe I'm going to get out of that truck's way. Because absolute best case result there is that I will die a quick and painless death. I was in Madison WI when Tony Robinson was killed and saw some of the protests against the police. It was interesting to me that the spirit of the protests weren't harmed by the fact that Tony had assaulted people on the street then tried to kill the police officer responding to the incident. Sitting in jail innocent and alive is always better in my book than being gunned down in the street by a scared and trigger-happy cop.
    - thomnottom 11y ago
      Shame on me? Bull. Plain and simple. The commenter completely painted the victim in the wrong here. If cops are comparable to semis baring down on the freeway then we need to abolish them completely because they are out of control. And playing nice isn't going to change that. Sitting in jail innocent and alive should not be the lesser of two evils.
      - freehunter 11y ago
        Again, you're framing it as a black and white, this or that argument. It's not. Cops abusing their power is wrong. People refusing to follow the orders of police officers is wrong. Arresting someone for contempt of cop is wrong. Resisting arrest is wrong. Driving a semi the wrong way down the road is wrong. Not swerving to avoid the semi is wrong. If an officer wants to arrest you and you start becoming physically violent, you are in the wrong. At that point it doesn't matter that the cop was wrong first, because you're already dead. Now, if your goal is to become a martyr for your cause, then you've just hit the jackpot. If your goal is to take another breath, to see your loved ones one more time... becoming physically violent with a cop is a really bad idea. Is this the way it should be? No, we shouldn't be afraid of police officers. But for better or worse, this is how it is. Your platitudes about "cops are bad, the victim is right" isn't entirely realistic unless the goal is to create more martyrs.
    - justaman 11y ago
      We know how to protest in Madison!
  - joshuaheard 11y ago
    Yes. In nearly all these stories, the victim is resisting arrest in one form or another. The moral of the story is: don't resist arrest. Respect the police and follow their orders. If you have an issue, take it up with the judge later.
    - thomnottom 11y ago
      How can someone resist arrest when they are not being arrested?
- makeset 11y ago
  > If you play nice, so will they. Have you never met a bully? Did they play nice when you did? Not everyone is inherently as reasonable and "nice" as you think yourself to be. This may be hard to grasp if you've spent your entire life in exclusively civil company, but there are plenty of people with malicious intent in the world. And is it any surprise that they would be drawn to a profession wielding physical dominion over the common citizen?
eevilspock 11y ago
The first and third are far easier to do if you are not black.
- jmorphy88 11y ago
  Huh? Why is harder to ask "is that a question or an order?" if you're black?
  - eevilspock 11y ago
    Ask some black friends of yours, particularly less privileged ones. Do that even if you're black yourself.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    Its harder -- or, perhaps more accurately, "less of an apparently viable course of action" -- if you have experience, first- or second-hand, which indicates that failure to submit to even superficially non-mandatory requests of a police officer has a non-negligible likelihood of resulting in escalation with potentially serious personal consequences. I suspect that part of eevilspock's basis for the statement was a belief (which I would think is justified) that these experiences are substantially correlated with race.
mistermann 11y ago
> You can ask if it's a question or an order. That sounds like excellent advice if your goal is to get executed.
- IanDrake 11y ago
  Geeze, where do you live? The officer in this video even tells the woman that he's given her a lawful order and she didn't even ask nicely.
  - mistermann 11y ago
    Geeze? Considering she's now dead, I don't think my comment is that unreasonable.
FireBeyond 11y ago
That isn't a question. At least in a vehicle, the Supreme Court has ruled that the police have the authority to order you to exit the vehicle and to use force to compel your compliance.
- IanDrake 11y ago
  A common trick used by police is to phrase questions as commands. "I'm going to search your vehicle, ok" If you say "ok", then you just volunteered to have your car searched.
  - FireBeyond 11y ago
    This is true, but tangential to my comment. The Supreme Court has determined that the police have the authority to -demand- your exit from a vehicle, orthogonal to the issue of "Am I free to go?" and other detainment questions, and to compel your exit from the vehicle using force if necessary (at which point you reach the awkward catch-22 of "is this classified as 'resisting arrest'?"
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > That isn't a question. "Please" implies a non-obligatory request; it can also be used as a layer of politeness over a command, but confirming the intent is not unreasonable. That police have the power to order you to exit the vehicle does not imply that any request to do so is an order.

techbio 11y ago

YANAL

IanDrake 11y ago
I'm not. Though, if you ask an officer of the law, you'll be told there is nothing wrong with civilly asking for clarification and/or verbalizing that you disagree (but will comply).

justaman 11y ago

You are 100x more likely to end the encounter in your favor if you do as the officer says. Do not, under any circumstance, make the officer feel uncomfortable. If you play nice, so will they. Always respect/practice the 4th.

thomnottom 11y ago
So you really think that all of the people recently murdered by police officers would be fine if they had just "behaved"?
- freehunter 11y ago
  All? No. He never said all, and that's an unfair way you're phrasing the argument. You're deliberately setting it up so that anyone who disagrees with you is immediately painted as blaming the victim. That's not what this discussion is about and you know it, so shame on you. He said you're more likely to. But in some cases, the situation could have been improved to the point where the outcome could have been completely different if the person had complied with the officer. I'm not saying the cop was right in any of the cases, but if I see a semi truck barreling down the freeway into oncoming traffic... I have the right-of-way because I'm in the correct lane, but you'd better believe I'm going to get out of that truck's way. Because absolute best case result there is that I will die a quick and painless death. I was in Madison WI when Tony Robinson was killed and saw some of the protests against the police. It was interesting to me that the spirit of the protests weren't harmed by the fact that Tony had assaulted people on the street then tried to kill the police officer responding to the incident. Sitting in jail innocent and alive is always better in my book than being gunned down in the street by a scared and trigger-happy cop.
  - thomnottom 11y ago
    Shame on me? Bull. Plain and simple. The commenter completely painted the victim in the wrong here. If cops are comparable to semis baring down on the freeway then we need to abolish them completely because they are out of control. And playing nice isn't going to change that. Sitting in jail innocent and alive should not be the lesser of two evils.
    - freehunter 11y ago
      Again, you're framing it as a black and white, this or that argument. It's not. Cops abusing their power is wrong. People refusing to follow the orders of police officers is wrong. Arresting someone for contempt of cop is wrong. Resisting arrest is wrong. Driving a semi the wrong way down the road is wrong. Not swerving to avoid the semi is wrong. If an officer wants to arrest you and you start becoming physically violent, you are in the wrong. At that point it doesn't matter that the cop was wrong first, because you're already dead. Now, if your goal is to become a martyr for your cause, then you've just hit the jackpot. If your goal is to take another breath, to see your loved ones one more time... becoming physically violent with a cop is a really bad idea. Is this the way it should be? No, we shouldn't be afraid of police officers. But for better or worse, this is how it is. Your platitudes about "cops are bad, the victim is right" isn't entirely realistic unless the goal is to create more martyrs.
  - justaman 11y ago
    We know how to protest in Madison!
- joshuaheard 11y ago
  Yes. In nearly all these stories, the victim is resisting arrest in one form or another. The moral of the story is: don't resist arrest. Respect the police and follow their orders. If you have an issue, take it up with the judge later.
  - thomnottom 11y ago
    How can someone resist arrest when they are not being arrested?
makeset 11y ago
> If you play nice, so will they. Have you never met a bully? Did they play nice when you did? Not everyone is inherently as reasonable and "nice" as you think yourself to be. This may be hard to grasp if you've spent your entire life in exclusively civil company, but there are plenty of people with malicious intent in the world. And is it any surprise that they would be drawn to a profession wielding physical dominion over the common citizen?

eevilspock 11y ago

The first and third are far easier to do if you are not black.

jmorphy88 11y ago
Huh? Why is harder to ask "is that a question or an order?" if you're black?
- eevilspock 11y ago
  Ask some black friends of yours, particularly less privileged ones. Do that even if you're black yourself.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  Its harder -- or, perhaps more accurately, "less of an apparently viable course of action" -- if you have experience, first- or second-hand, which indicates that failure to submit to even superficially non-mandatory requests of a police officer has a non-negligible likelihood of resulting in escalation with potentially serious personal consequences. I suspect that part of eevilspock's basis for the statement was a belief (which I would think is justified) that these experiences are substantially correlated with race.

mistermann 11y ago

> You can ask if it's a question or an order. That sounds like excellent advice if your goal is to get executed.

IanDrake 11y ago
Geeze, where do you live? The officer in this video even tells the woman that he's given her a lawful order and she didn't even ask nicely.
- mistermann 11y ago
  Geeze? Considering she's now dead, I don't think my comment is that unreasonable.

FireBeyond 11y ago

That isn't a question. At least in a vehicle, the Supreme Court has ruled that the police have the authority to order you to exit the vehicle and to use force to compel your compliance.

IanDrake 11y ago
A common trick used by police is to phrase questions as commands. "I'm going to search your vehicle, ok" If you say "ok", then you just volunteered to have your car searched.
- FireBeyond 11y ago
  This is true, but tangential to my comment. The Supreme Court has determined that the police have the authority to -demand- your exit from a vehicle, orthogonal to the issue of "Am I free to go?" and other detainment questions, and to compel your exit from the vehicle using force if necessary (at which point you reach the awkward catch-22 of "is this classified as 'resisting arrest'?"
dragonwriter 11y ago
> That isn't a question. "Please" implies a non-obligatory request; it can also be used as a layer of politeness over a command, but confirming the intent is not unreasonable. That police have the power to order you to exit the vehicle does not imply that any request to do so is an order.