This shouldn't be hard to understand. Don't talk to the police, without your attorney present, under any circumstances whatsoever.

Dating the police is just such an astoundingly egregious violation of this principle that I can only wonder what, if anything, those people are thinking.

Anyway, the key takeaway seems to don't date anyone who dates the police. Firstly, because it directly puts your own safety at risk, as this article exemplifies. Secondly, because it demonstrates terrible judgment; it seems reasonable to assume they are likely to make other terrible decisions in the future.

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ultrarunner 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Dating the police is just such an astoundingly egregious violation of this principle

There are still quite a few people who think the police are the friendly government-provided customer service agents of life, although I've watched this viewpoint decline markedly over the last twenty years at least.

Locally, a woman went on a hiking date with a Phoenix cop and wound up dead [0]. Notably, the woman was from New England, while the cop was local and absolutely should have known better how dangerous conditions would be. The police, of course, investigated themselves and found they did nothing wrong.

[0] https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/hiker-recalls-seeing-woman...

	▲	s1artibartfast 32 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		really? Thats the evidence cops are bad? Im honestly embarassed.
	▲	warumdarum 20 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		We have seen the left do a virtue signaling marathon while ignoring all problems of substance and still beeing in denial on why the general population categorizes them into "unfit to govern elite from reality detached elite" while the right does not much to help, but at least its populist signal that they are capable of detecting and prioritizing the populations problems correctly.

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tptacek an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is an extremely online belief. Oak Park, IL, the inner-ring suburb of Chicago where I live, is almost certainly one of the 10 most progressive and left-leaning municipalities in the country. Oak Parkers (not me) have the opposite concern: we're below our threshold number of sworn officers, and desperate to add more. The median Oak Parker has very positive views of the police (and also all the standard progressive concerns about abuses.)

Lots of political beliefs are like this! There are plenty of things people believe very strongly, and get near universal reinforcement on in their communities, that don't survive contact with actual living grass. The median American has an extraordinarily high opinion of Amazon, for instance, something you'd never know unless you sought out polling (or, you know, took a walk down a residential block and looked at the stoops.)

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duld an hour ago | parent [-]

To clarify, you're stating that "Don't talk to the police" is an "extremely online belief"? Or were you referencing the dating portion of the comment?

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tptacek an hour ago | parent [-]

Correct: "never talk to the police" is a very online belief. I watch people talk to police all the time. People go out of their way to do it.

I don't even know what to do with the "never date police officers" thing. Most police officers are married. It's a shift-work job, so they have high divorce rates, but they just remarry.

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fzeroracer 19 minutes ago | parent [-]

Saying never talk to the police is an 'online belief' is frankly baffling.

There are multiple examples of prominent law professors bringing in ex-police professionals who all say the exact same thing: never talk to the police. If you spend five minutes around a lawyer they will say the same thing. If you ever end up finding yourself in legal turmoil it is the very first thing a lawyer will directly advise you to do.

People being stupid I don't think suddenly makes this advice terminally online. I was hearing it, in person, when I was in college over a decade ago.

	▲	tptacek 15 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Most people simply don't see themselves as being in zero-sum contests with the police. If you are in such a contest, those videos you've watched are quite useful and important. But when there's a hit and run on your block, expect your neighbors to go out of their way to volunteer information to the police. I've read threads here where people have made impassioned arguments that you yourself should never volunteer information to the police investigating a crime such as a hit and run. The police will turn it against you and somehow make you the target of their investigation! Ordinary people out in the world do not think that way, and you will not succeed in making them think that way by showing them videos of lawyers explaining why the only thing you should ever say is "I do not consent to any searches and will not answer any of your questions". If you said that to a police officer doing a canvass in my neighborhood, people would look at you like a space alien.

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goda90 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Best hope you don't catch the eye of an officer even. Things can go poorly without a relationship, or even without a direct rejection.