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� ��������������������� • How Easy It Is for Anyone to Get Arrested ����������������� • How Even a Single Arrest Could Ruin Your Life��� • What to Do If the Police Get in Your Face Dale C. Carson and Wes Denham Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Carson, Dale C. Arrest-proof yourself : an ex-cop reveals how easy it is for anyone to get arrested, how even a single arrest could ruin your life, and what to do if the police get in your face / Dale C. Carson and Wes Denham. p. cm. ISBN-13: 978-1-55652-637-4 ISBN-10: 1-55652-637-7 1. Arrest. 2. Detention of persons. I. Denham, Wes. II. Title. HV8080.A6C38 2006 363.2'32—dc22 2006017597 All photographs courtesy of Dale Carson or Wes Denham unless otherwise noted. Cover design: Emily Brackett, Visible Logic Front cover image: Howard Berman/The Image Bank/Getty Images Interior design: Sarah Olson © 2007 by Dale C. Carson and Sam Wesley Denham III All rights reserved Published by Chicago Review Press, Incorporated 814 North Franklin Street Chicago, Illinois 60610 ISBN-13: 978-1-55652-637-4 ISBN-10: 1-55652-637-7 eBook ISBN: 1-55652-700-4 Printed in the United States of America 5 4 3 2 1 To the thousands of young men in jail for petty offenses. It’s not right. It’s not just. America can do better. disclaimer: Laws vary from state to state. Find a competent attorney in your state and rely on his or her advice first. CONTENTS Introduction: Talking Shop with an Old Cop ................................................1 » PART I « CRIMINAL JUSTICE PLAYERS: COPS, BAD GUYS, THE CLUELESS HORDE 1 New Plantations for New Generations ..................................................29 2 To Hunt and Arrest Is the Quest of the Best ........................................50 3 When You’re Living Free and Tall, Don’t Become a Score in Police Pinball ..................................................61 4 Getting Wise to Real Bad Guys ...............................................................76 5 Get on Board with the Clueless Horde ...................................................83 6 Those Freaking Jits Will Give You Fits ...................................................95 7 Why Minorities Get Hammered ...........................................................109 8 Law Enforcement Shouldn’t Give a Pass to All Those Crooks in the Middle Class .............................................122 9 Some Modest Suggestions ......................................................................132 » PART II « ARREST PROOFING ON THE STREETS 10 Cop a ’Tude and You Get Screwed .......................................................139 11 Dirty Cop Tricks .....................................................................................142 12 Peekaboo! Peekaboo! Don’t Let Big Bad Cops See You .................... 147 13 Whatcha Gonna Do When They Come for You? ...............................158 14 Blue Light? Stay Out of Sight! ............................................................... 161 15 If You Lie, the Cops Will Pry ................................................................164 16 Mama Was Right: Stay Home at Night! .............................................. 170 17 You Can Win by Giving In .................................................................... 173 18 To Avoid the Tragic, Use Words That Are Magic ..............................177 19 Street Creds Are Tops for Dealing with Cops ....................................184 20 There Ain’t No Hope When You Carry Dope ....................................193 21 Emergency Procedures ..........................................................................197 22 When Girls Tell a Tale That Sends You to Jail ....................................202 » PART III « ARREST PROOFING IN YOUR CAR 23 Citizen Inspection? Revenue Collection? Or Driver Protection? .... 213 24 Mirror, Mirror in the Car, Will the Cops Stay Near or Far? ............223 25 Staying Free During a Traffic Stop Means the Guy Who Loses Is the Cop ................................................235 26 To Be Searched or Not to Be Searched? That Is the Question! ........241 27 Tips That Never Fail to Keep You Out of Jail ......................................250 28 Car Creds Are the Key to Keep You Free ............................................255 29 Don’t Get in a Lurch. Do a Search! ......................................................263 30 You Can Tell Cops “Toodle-oo” When You Squirt the Yellow Goo ........................................................270 » PART IV « AIDS TO LEARNING The Golden Rules ..........................................................................................277 The Magic Words ..........................................................................................277 Index ...............................................................................................................279 INTRODUCTION TALKING SHOP WITH AN OLD COP ou’ve heard about how-to books? This is a how-not-to book—how not Yto get arrested and tossed into jail for petty and avoidable offenses of the sort that fill every jail in the United States. The title,Arrest-Proof Your- self, is hype, since no one, not even the president, is arrest proof. What this book does is make you arrest resistant. This book is for people who are not career criminals. It’s not about how to beat the system, but about how to avoid letting the system roll over you and ruin your life in ways that may not become apparent until years after an arrest. For career criminals, arrest is inevitable. For people with lapses in judgment, bad manners, a taste for marijuana, and no knowledge of how the criminal justice system operates, arrest is not inevitable, it’s optional. That’s right—optional. Far too many black Americans, Hispanics, and poor whites think that arrest and prison are just going to happen—that resistance, as they say, is futile. They think the system is rigged against them. Get over this attitude. By understanding cops and the criminal justice system, you can make choices and adapt your behavior—especially in the presence of police—to minimize your chances of getting arrested. Even if you’re not the most upstanding citizen, you can take charge and stay out of the system long enough to give yourself a second chance. Clear your brain of thoughts about victimhood, racism, social ills, poverty, etc. Those things are not going away. This book is not about sav- ing society; it’s about saving you when you’re standing in front of a police officer who is wearing a blue uniform and a gun. It’s about your choices— how you can act, speak, and behave in order not to get arrested. The police officer can choose to arrest you or not arrest you. You can choose to act in 1 INTRODUCTION ways that will encourage the police to let you go or, better yet, to not stop and question you at all. This book uses the word you to mean “the person most likely to get arrested.” If you’re a parent, you generally means your kids. “Who, me?” you say. Yes, you! Changes in law enforcement technique and doctrine that have occurred over the last few years mean that police are making more arrests than ever. You are more likely to get busted today than in the past. “But I’m a good guy,” you protest. If you’re a parent, you may say, “I have nice kids. Why should I worry about them getting arrested?” No matter how upstanding you are, you are likely to have encounters with police that can result in arrest. Here’s why: » Improved technology and training enable police to arrest people for petty crimes that in the past were ignored due to lack of manpower and resources. » A law enforcement doctrine called proactive policing has spread across the land. It calls for zero tolerance of petty offenses, including such things as jaywalking, loitering, and drinking a beer on the street. Proactive policing has reduced crime—no question—but to do so it requires huge numbers of arrests of petty offenders who in years past would never have seen the inside of a jail. » The volume of arrests has caused a boom in jail and court construction and the creation of a criminal justice system that employs hundreds of thousands and requires ever more arrests to justify its existence. » The near universal installation of computers in police cruis- ers, and their ability to access law enforcement databases instantly, allows police to make more arrests for what I call administrative crimes. These are failure to maintain tags, licenses, and car insurance; outstanding arrest warrants; driving with suspended licenses; failure to appear at court 2 INTRODUCTION hearings; and violation of probation and parole. None of these crimes involves theft, violence, or injury. They are not offenses against people but against the state. In the past, paper records made arrests for these crimes difficult, especially when the offender moved to another state. With the advent of comput- ers, the jails are stuffed with people guilty of not paying fees, not doing paperwork, not showing up in court, and in general thumbing their noses at the system. » People are shocked to discover that they can be arrested for things they didn’t even know were illegal. For example, mil- lions of parents chauffeuring the kids in the van or SUV don’t realize that the stimulants and antidepressants pre- scribed for hyperactive children are scheduled narcotics. Kids carry these pills around in their pockets and book bags. The pills scatter inside the vehicle and can get Mom busted if she cannot produce a written prescription during a routine traffic stop. » Dope, my friends, let’s talk about dope.