I'm an American who's had very mixed experiences with the police.

I've had police give me arbitrary orders. I've had police in a state of ever-escalating anger while I'm being completely cooperative and saying not much more than "Yes sir, no sir!" I've had police rant and rave at me outside my car window. I've had police bury incidents of threats and physical intimidation against me as a favor to their friends. I've had police tell me bald-faced lies about the District Attorney's office that the District Attorney told me were complete fabrications.

I've also had very good interactions with the police.

I'm an Ivy League graduate and have often been a highly paid professional -- which was my status for most of the above interactions with the police. I have no police record of any kind. I am rather small in stature and have a meek personal demeanor and a clean cut appearance. I am, however, not "white." My interactions with the police have been astonishingly varied.

Being a teenager is a similar offense. In my teen days we drew the attention of 8 police officers (who circled the building) by sitting nearby a police officers wife who apparently didn't like our language. Mostly just frisked for drugs and whatnot; it became a running joke.

It depends alot on you. People that assert their rights, particularly their right to remain silent, often find themselves confronted with a power-tripping neanderthal armed with a loaded weapon and arrest powers. If you simply cooperate with them - answer questions etc. - you will likely have more pleasant interactions with them, however you dramatically increase your chances of having legal issues because of whatever you say or do not say to them.

This video [1], of course, should always be mentioned when discussing police interaction. In short, don't ever talk to the police. US Police are trained to make exercising the myriad rights we have both uncomfortable and counterintuitive. But you have to remember that by the time you are in front of a police officer, it's too late to talk your way out of whatever situation you are in. You can only make it worse by talking to them.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc

> Perhaps we have good cops over here in Washington?

My first year in college (in WA), campus police (actual po-lice with a campus jurisdiction) conducted a coordinated raid on pot dealers in the dorms which they treated like a raid on a meth lab : guns drawn, doors kicked in, loud noises, innocent bystanders thrown to the ground, etc.

Obviously, this isn't analogous to a party - and cops do in fact have a SOP they follow when it comes to drug raids - but I still feel like it was handled in an unnecessarily heavy handed and tone-deaf way that's somewhat symptomatic of a larger problem.

Heh I was just about to say that we shouldn't conflate one experience to "all cops in the US", but then realized all of my experiences have also been in Washington, so maybe we just have kinder police.

Because Police are trained state-by-state, county-by-county... and even city-by-city. Some cops are awful, other cops are fine.