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Re:How I Ended Up In Solitary After Calling 911 For Help by apayan on Thursday February 13, 2014 @11:14PM (#7236870)
I can't recommend enough watching this video. The law professor explains why you should never speak to the police. It's 46 minutes long, but every minute is pure gold.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE

Re:How I Ended Up In Solitary After Calling 911 For Help by antr on Friday February 14, 2014 @07:02AM (#7238065)
I find it ironic that when the cop starts talking he mentions that in the US people should be thankful because they are given a Miranda warning, because, according to him, in other parts of the world like in "Spain and Italy" cops beat up citizens. Last time I check such abuse can't be seen anywhere in Europe. More cop BS.
Re:How I Ended Up In Solitary After Calling 911 For Help by elohesra on Friday February 14, 2014 @08:35AM (#7238362)
Yeah, it definitely can. I've lived in Europe all my life, and traveled over Europe since I was kid, and I've seen mainland European police openly abusing people on the street. I've seen cops randomly firing their firearms in the air as 'crowd control' (the crowd in question was three old women trying to get on a boat, this was in Greece), policing openly punching someone in the face for some remark they didn't like (again, Greece), police demanding a person's passport papers at a port and refusing to return them until UK police got involved (France), and so on.

The only countries where I've never seen any open abuse by police so far have been Britain and Germany, and I haven't spent a lot of time in Germany.

EDIT: Actually, there has recently been a famous case in Britain where a police officer shoved a citizen to the floor and the citizen died of internal injuries [0]. I didn't actually witness the abuse, but it proves that even the UK isn't immune.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Ian_Tomlinson

Re:How I Ended Up In Solitary After Calling 911 For Help by brazzy on Friday February 14, 2014 @08:11AM (#7238254)
Oh, it happens. In Germany as well: http://www.dw.de/preventing-police-brutality-in-germany/a-16...

But my impression is that it's rather less common than in the USA and the courts, prosecution and conservative public don't side with the police as much.

Re:How I Ended Up In Solitary After Calling 911 For Help by Kurtz79 on Friday February 14, 2014 @07:52AM (#7238193)
To be fair, as an Italian living in Spain, there have been cases in recent years where "cops beat up citizens" in both countries, mostly occurring during large rallies.

Still, these occurrences are isolated cases, receive large media attention and are definitely not considered "the norm".

Re:How I Ended Up In Solitary After Calling 911 For Help by antr on Friday February 14, 2014 @09:01AM (#7238496)
Don't take my comment out of context: the video refers to the context of an interrogation, questioning, stop by the police. Not a riot. The policeman follows the presentation by the lawyer regarding the 5th amendment, where it applies, and how it used, where do Miranda warning apply, etc., in line with HN link conversation. This is not a topic of riots - which is quite a different story to the OP.
Re:How I Ended Up In Solitary After Calling 911 For Help by jjoonathan on Friday February 14, 2014 @08:45AM (#7238423)
> Last time I check such abuse can't be seen anywhere in Europe.

That sounds like wishful thinking. Where exactly did you check?

Re:How I Ended Up In Solitary After Calling 911 For Help by antr on Friday February 14, 2014 @09:10AM (#7238548)
The video refers to the context of an interrogation, questioning, stop by the police. There seems to be a constant theme in the US regarding police abuse (and I'm not talking about a scenario of a riot, etc.) during these moments – that is what I refer to when I say "Last time I check such abuse can't be seen anywhere in Europe." Are there going to be cases of such police brutality? Sure. Is it as frequent as the cases in the US, absolutely not. Do take a look at the NPMSRP reports and compare that to any EU country.
Re:How I Ended Up In Solitary After Calling 911 For Help by jjoonathan on Friday February 14, 2014 @08:28AM (#7238329)
This video was what I had in mind when I wrote

> the "never talk to police" strategy ... only starts to probabilistically pay off after you've gotten to the point of requiring complex court proceedings (which you might never have gotten to if you were more cooperative in the first place).

> Once you require the services of a trial lawyer, the benefits of talking are off the table and the price of silence looks like pocket change. That's why you hear the advice "never talk to the police." Not because it's a good idea in general (try it next time you get a traffic ticket and tell me how it goes), but because it's a very bad idea in certain very specific cases, which happen to be precisely the cases seen by those giving the advice. Your prior probabilities are different, and your behavior should reflect that.

Re:How I Ended Up In Solitary After Calling 911 For Help by smaudet on Monday February 17, 2014 @03:25AM (#7251111)
This is good stuff - also why privacy is so damn important - those who don't believe in it are simply clueless, or morons, or logically both.
Re:How I Ended Up In Solitary After Calling 911 For Help by siculars on Friday February 14, 2014 @05:48AM (#7237892)
This. A thousand times this.