The United States Constitution, the Bill of Rights and subsequent court decisions impose many rules regarding law enforcement and it is very important that the police follow them to respect our rights as individuals. However we as citizens also rely on police officers to protect our communities from crime; to meet that challenge they obviously need to conduct criminal investigations.

Police do not need probable cause to investigate a crime. An officer or detective can ask you to provide information without having any level of suspicion that you committed a crime or were
involved in a crime. At the same time, the law does not require a citizen to respond when an
officer seeks information. You are under no obligation to assist in any criminal investigation. This is especially true if you are the subject or focus of the investigation because you have the right not to incriminate yourself, granted by the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Anytime an individual who may be the focus of an investigation is asked to speak with law enforcement officers that person should consider retaining counsel first.

As a general rule, police are very busy. They are either investigating crimes, responding to calls, doing paperwork related to calls or investigations, or they are in court. They generally do not come to your door or come up out of the blue and start a conversation with you unless they have a purpose in mind. Often, the purpose is to investigate you, or someone close to you. That is their job, after all. They are police. They arrest people.

Therefore, if an officer approaches you and begins asking questions and you did not call the officer, you should politely refuse to talk the officer and ask, "Am I free to go?" If you are not, you should immediately tell the officer, "I want to talk to a lawyer."

You may hear promises of "It'll be easier if you just tell us the truth" or "If you don't tell me what's going on, I'll have to take you to jail" or something along those lines. What they are trying to do is to get you to confess so that they have a legal basis to arrest you. Many times, if a defendant would simply have the courage to say nothing and keep quiet, criminal charges could be avoided.

Under no circumstances should you provide false identification to an officer. You should not lie to them. You should not be disrespectful or unruly. Simply keep your mouth shut. As you have likely seen on TV thousands of times, "Anything you say can be used against you..." It certainly will be, unless you protect yourself by saying nothing. If a police officer wants to arrest you, he will. Trying to talk your way out of it will almost always only make your situation worse.

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