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Re: What if
by fozzy

"showing respect"

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There are a couple of problems here. First of all, there is no law that you must show an officer "respect." Unlike in the military, in the civilian world there is no law against "disrespect." This leads to a second problem -- there is no legal definition of 'respect' in the context of 'showing respect' to an officer. Can you get 10 people (let alone the whole country) to agree on what precisely is/isn't "disrespectful"? Many people think it is disrespectful to call a person you have just met in an official capacity by their first name. Many police are trained to do this (alternate reasons. 1-"to be friendly" or 2-"to emphasize they have power over you"). Thus, even if you *try* and show respect you may end up not satisfying that particular officer, and there is no official standard to judge by. [in most legal usage, "respect" translates into "obedience", and that in the end is what the officer wants, whether he has legal authority to compel it or not."].

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"had he been cooperative the cop would have been more likely to give it."

I'm not certain this is true either. In an upscale neighborhood this might be so. But for 'most' people (i.e. people who are 'working class' or 'poor') complying with one request will simply get you another. If you give the police permission to do something, and they find no reasoon to arrest you, they will ask to do something else. Here is a typical example:

Black youth standing on street corner. Officer comes up "May I ask you a few questions?" Youth says "Sure" and officer begins questioning. Youth does not admit to some local crime. Officer asks "May I pat you down to make sure you aren't carrying any weapons or drugs or nuclear weapons?" Two points -- first, the officer tries to make his request sound like a joke, second an officer during a normal 'Terry stop' pat down is not supposed to be searching for drugs, but for weapons. If he finds something now, and there is debate, he will argue that he got consent for a "drug" search, not just a "pat down", even though "pat down" is the term he used. OK, officer finds nothing in pat down. His questions get more intense, he now asks to search the youth's backpack. Finds nothing. "Is that your car?" he asks, pointing to a nearby parked vehicle. "Yes" says the youth. "I can search your car, can't I?" asks the officer while resting his hand on his holster. ........ go ahead, be nice. Just be ready to be there for a while and to eventually get 'popped' for something.

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