They can tell you to just say you were there, and they'll go easy on you. You lie and say you were there, now they have evidence that can actually lock you up, even if you are a random person off the street.
For example, in this case police threatened to arrest the mans wife if he didn’t confess to killing his child (a new trial was ordered): https://brooklyneagle.com/articles/2014/02/20/police-can-lie...
But they went on to say it was still acceptable to lie to suspects... I imagine this murky area of the law will eventually say that police cannot lie to suspects. The Central Park Five is mentioned in that article and is a blatant example of police lying to coerce testimony and then putting innocent children in prison.
in any other context these tactics themselves would be illegal, and i am firm believer that you can not enforce the law by breaking, and that the police should NEVER how the power to do things the public can not
They don't even need to do that. They can just lie to you. "Hey, your buddy just totally ratted you out in the other room, you better tell us your side of it if you don't want to take the rap for everything"