Quote:
Originally Posted by hbliam
It kind of depends on the context.
If it's, "Sir, can I talk to you for a minute?", I would stop, hold hands up in front of your chest with fingers spread. Officer will either tell you to chill or instruct you further. Then wait for him to get out of the car or call you over. (If you want to talk to him)
If it's, "Sir, stop right there!", I would stop and raise my hands over my head, then await further instructions.
And you are right. Never walk up on an Officer sitting in his unit unless he calls you over. If you need to talk to one sitting in a vehicle, make yourself known long before you get close to him/her.
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The example I gave was true. I was in college, 9 pm, walking with a friend talking about a business plan. A NBPD car cruised up beside us and hit us with his spotlight. We stopped, he stopped. It was winter and we were wearing coats.
We stood there, feeling stupid, for about a minute, the officer did and said nothing. Finally I told my friend not to move, put my hands in front of my chest with my fingers making "here's the church, here's the steeple" and SLOWLY walked across in front of his car and around to his side of the car. He left the spotlight on my friend. I stopped and waited about 20 more seconds then said loudly - because his window was rolled up - "CAN I HELP YOU?"
After a while he rolled his window down, wanted to know who we were, what we were doing out at night, what our addresses were, see our id, etc. He never told us what he thought we were doing, and we could have been non-cooperative, but we had nothing to hide and just thought he was being strange. Finally he told us to move along, as if we were loitering at a mall.
If he'd said ANYTHING when he lit us up, it would have been a lot less confusing. We wanted to cooperate, we just weren't sure how.