If you're lucky enough to be friends with a cop, they may give you one of their get out of jail cards, which you can flash to other cops along with a request for favorable treatment.
But the favoritism that cops afford to one another's friends are nothing compared to the favoritism they give each other. Thanks to the sweetheart deals cut by police "unions," cops who are accused of crimes get all kinds of benefits, ranging from the right to choose who may interrogate them to a guarantee that they can see all the evidence against them before answering questions, to the right to know the names of anyone who gave evidence against them before question.
Cops get to call a time-out on any questioning, pausing the investigations against them for 5 days in Virginia and 30 days in Louisiana. They get to purge their records of any accusations of wrongdoing, and they can't be threatened or enticed with plea bargain deals by investigators.
No perp gets these privileges: if you demanded that cops treat garden-variety suspects this way, they'd crucify you with claims that this would allow criminals to get away clean and reoffend…. Perhaps that's why, when cops are dirty enough to finally, finally face justice, they always turn out to be repeat offenders?
In 50 cities and 13 states, for example, union contracts “restrict interrogations by limiting how long an officer can be interrogated, who can interrogate them, the types of questions that can be asked, and when an interrogation can take place.” In Virginia police officers have a right to at least a five-day delay before being interrogated. In Louisiana police officers have up to 30 days during which no questioning is allowed and they cannot be questioned for sustained periods of time or without breaks. In some cities, police officers can only be interrogated during work hours. Regular people do not get these privileges.The key to a good interrogation is that the suspect doesn’t know what the interrogator knows so the suspect can be caught in a lie which unravels their story. Thus, the Florida Police Bill of Rights is stunning in what it allows police officers:
The law enforcement officer or correctional officer under investigation must be informed of the nature of the investigation before any interrogation begins, and he or she must be informed of the names of all complainants. All identifiable witnesses shall be interviewed, whenever possible, prior to the beginning of the investigative interview of the accused officer. The complaint, all witness statements, including all other existing subject officer statements, and all other existing evidence, including, but not limited to, incident reports, GPS locator information, and audio or video recordings relating to the incident under investigation, must be provided to each officer who is the subject of the complaint before the beginning of any investigative interview of that officer.
Police Union Privileges [Alex Tabarrok/Marginal Revolution]
(Image: Four Leaf Clothing)
