QLD How to be Legally Disrespectful to Police?

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Cooper

Active Member
17 April 2018
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I want to know how to be disrespectful to the police such as: Calling them a public servant, not winding window down all the way. "Am I being detained?" Repeatedly, etc etc etc.

What else can I do that the average cop would find intimidating or rude?
 

Rod

Lawyer
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27 May 2014
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www.hutchinsonlegal.com.au
Go to facebook rather than a serious legal website.
 

Sally-Anne Fagin

Well-Known Member
18 September 2017
35
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121
What's the point, unless they are picking on you?

Your aim should be to have as little contact with the police as possible, so don't do silly things that will bring their attention onto yourself.

For example, always have a train ticket, don't speed, don't drink drive. If you take drugs then don't carry them on you in public, take them in the privacy of your own home and leave them at home.
Don't get drunk in public and get into fights or do stupid things, don't loiter around the streets in dodgy areas as the cops will sooner or later stop and ask what you are doing there, and who are you, and have you ever been in trouble with the police before, all the usual questions, and they may also search you.

Don't associate with deadbeats who commit crime or otherwise attract the attention of the police, as they will then bring the heat onto you as well.

Stay off the streets as much as possible. Don't be "known", ie. someone the police know by sight and will take notice of when they are driving by, and if they are bored may decide to stop and question you.

No need to be intimidating or rude, there is nothing to be gained by it, and you just do yourself down by acting like that. Act with dignity and self respect, not like gutter trash.

By all means be assertive though; if you don't like the police you can best give effect to it by being assertive and standing up for your rights. To stand up for your rights, you have to know what they are first, and you need to argue with them on a factual legal basis.

By all means if they stop you, ask why they stopped you, and if you are being detained. If they say yes you are being detained then ask them on what grounds, and under what section of what Act are you being detained, but if they say you are not being detained, then ask if you are free to go. I know it can be easy to lose your cool in such a situation, if you are not upset then you are nervous, but you must remain as calm as you can, and not give into the temptation to become abusive.

Carry a pen and notebook, and ask for their names, and write them down. Do it politely, pull out your pen and notebook and say, "I will just get your names". They don't usually like this, and will often say, "Why do you want my name?" Just say, "Just for procedure". They will often say nothing then, and you will then need to say politely, "So I will just get your name".

And then they will usually say, "I'm constable Smith, and this is constable Jones".

They are less likely to do anything to you once they know you have written down their names.

Don't become aggressive or abusive, as that will just give them ammunition to use against you, and they have many options to respond, such as, "Police formed the opinion, based on the demeanour and behaviour of the accused, that the accused was suffering a psychotic episode and was violent", and next thing you are locked up in a mental ward against your will, and being forced to take drugs against your will.

And the more you argue that there's nothing wrong with you, they will just nod knowingly and murmer to their colleagues, "Lacks insight", and therefore you are still "sick", so you can't leave.

Or they might try, "Your honour, we formed the opinion from the accused demeanour and behaviour that the accused may have been under the influence of drugs, and based on this reasonable suspicion we decided to conduct a search of the accused, and during the search the accused pushed Officer Smith to the chest, causing pain to officer Smith, and causing officer Smith to lose balance. Officer Jones then employed capsicum spray against the accused to restrain him.

The accused continued to resist police (ie. the accused said, "Aaaarghh! What did you do that for?") and so then officer Smith deployed his taser against the accused, and other police on the scene assisted by tacitly employing their batons in accordance with their training, to assist in restraining the accused (beat the s**t out of you in other words)".

And don't forget, the Magistrate will believe the police over you any day, and the police will all turn up in Court with identical statements, and I mean identical in word for word. (Funny how two police can write independent statements that turn out word for word identical). And the Magistrate will accept them as genuine independent witness statements.

No, go out of your way to avoid un-necessary confrontations with the police, there is nothing to win in a confrontation with police.

Being rude or intimidating towards them is not winning anything. If someone is rude towards you, do you think they have won something? No, you just think they are a fu**wit. You need to find something meaningful to do with your life if you have nothing better to do than worry about how you can be rude to the police.

At least try and work out what you are doing that brings yourself to their attention, and then change that.

What they really don't like is if you film them with your phone camera.

They will say you are not allowed to film them and it's against the law and all that, or you need their permission to film them.

It is not against the law to film them and audio record them.

They might try and grab your camera off you though, so be ready for that.

I have done all that though, and they generally wont hang around long if you start filming them, once you have shown that you wont fall for their argument that you are not allowed to film them or audio record them.

The female police especially; soon as you pull out a camera they forget about you and it becomes, how's my hair, I wish I had put on a bit of foundation, do I look fat in this uniform? etc.

But if there are no witnesses about they might take your camera off you and delete the footage.
Sure you can recover the footage from the hard drive after it has been deleted, but you will need to pay for an expert to do it.

But take it from someone who has had a lot of conflict and run-ins with them, sometimes 5 times a week, because of living a street life when I was younger, that you want to live your life so you avoid coming into contact with them un-necessarily, and avoid attracting their attention to yourself.
 

Sally-Anne Fagin

Well-Known Member
18 September 2017
35
0
121
I want to know how to be disrespectful to the police such as: Calling them a public servant, not winding window down all the way. "Am I being detained?" Repeatedly, etc etc etc.

What else can I do that the average cop would find intimidating or rude?

I would further like to say, in relation to your comment about not winding the window down all the way in order to be disrespectful to the cops.

Most if the time if they ask you to wind down the window, it will be because of a random breath test stop.

The aim is to get through it quickly and smoothly, and go on your way.

So "blow till I tell you to stop", cop looks at the breathaliser, says "how much have you had to drink today?"

Well I mean you know it's showing zero as you don't drink alcohol, and the cop knows it's showing zero, so I don't know why they ask you this. Is there some sort of alcohol that doesn't register on the meter?

If you start getting disrespectful or abusive, well while they are there they might just then decide to have a quick inspection of your car, instead of telling you you can go.

And then it may be, "the tread on those rear tyres is worn, I'm going to have to put a defect sticker on your car, so you can't drive it till you get them fixed and the car inspected. So you are going to have to leave your car here and walk home. Have a nice day.

Last time I got stopped was years ago. The car was out of rego actually. Pulled into the servo on New South Head Road, Rushcutters Bay, and got some fuel. Then drove off and left into Boundary St which was about 150 metres past the servo, I was taking the back way through Paddington to go home.

Plain car with two detectives came up behind me, put the Kojak light on their roof, so I pulled into the kerb.

Anyway I stood on the footpath near the side of the car, taking a phone call, and the two detectives were doing something in the boot, I couldn't see what they were doing from where I was standing, I though they were searching it, but they were at the boot for a good five minutes, and the funny thing is they didn't search the rest of the car.

I mean if they were looking for some kind of contraband then you would think they would search the rest of the car as well, such as in the glove box, or under the seats.

And then they gave me a ticket for the unregistered car, they didn't seem at all concerned about the unregistered car, and then they drove off.

When I got the Statement of Facts it said something along the lines of, we saw the "Vehicle of Interest" pull into the service station at Rushcutters Bay, and when it drove off we followed the "Vehicle of Interest" and pulled it over in Boundary St, Paddington.

I think there was more to this than meets the eye.

As far as I know detectives don't usually concern themselves with stopping vehicles and issuing traffic tickets, I think they have bigger fish to fry, especially in that part of town, and I think they leave that up to the uniformed police.

Then they say they saw me pull into the service station, had they been following me for a while before I pulled into the servo? And then they obviously sat and watched while I refuelled the car, and waited till I had driven off again before stopping me a block later.

Then the term they used in the Statement of Facts, "Vehicle of interest", seems to maybe indicate that my car was flagged in intelligence reports, and they were following me; for how long I don't know.

And then how after they stopped me, they asked me to open the boot, and were doing something in there for a good 5 minutes, but didn't search the rest of the car. Makes me wonder if they were putting a tracking device in the boot, and that was the reason for stopping me.

I never bothered to look for a tracking device at the time as far as I can remember. May have had a bit of a look.

I don't think this was just a random stop, I think there was more behind it. I think they possibly had me under investigation for some reason, and had been surveilling me for a while.
 

Oneman

Well-Known Member
7 September 2017
65
4
199
Mate, you've been reading too many comics and watching too much TV. Sally-Ann gave you a lot of good opinions. The one thing she didn't tell you was to grow up!