Arrest-Proof Yourself (56 page)

WHY YOU SHOULD RESIST SEARCHES

Because you have the right to do so. Government should not be checking up on you and snooping into your affairs just because it can. Poor and minority Americans are subjected to a disproportionate number of searches and traffic stops. This is the one area where the institutional racism of police departments really shows. In my downtown neighborhood, police recently stopped, searched, and arrested hundreds of people during a three-day crackdown. Why don’t police have crackdowns in expensive gated communities? Do you think snotty rich kids don’t carry dope in Mommy’s Lexus? Cops are missing out here. I always enjoyed arresting rich people.

For over 200 years Americans have argued in courts and legislatures and died on battlefields to protect your rights. Assert yours today.

27

TIPS THAT NEVER FAIL TO KEEP YOU OUT OF JAIL

L
ending your car is a disaster that lasts forever after. Never lend your car to anyone who is not listed on insurance and in other, written authorization in the vehicle—not to family members, not to neighbors, not to friends. Should the vehicle be involved in an accident, used in the commission of a crime, or stopped by police, the complications can be unending. You have civil liability, often uninsured by your carrier, for damages to other people and their property, and criminal liability if the car is used in a crime or stopped and found to contain drugs, guns, or stolen property.

Depending on the state, the vehicle can be impounded or seized. Most important, people to whom you loan your vehicle all too often leave dope in the ashtray or under a seat, kiddie narcotics between the cushions of the backseat, or a surprise or two in the trunk.

Lending cars is an enormous problem for the clueless. Their lives are usually in an uproar in which vehicles, or the lack thereof, are at the center of the drama. In the housing projects, barrios, and trailer parks of America, cars are always being stolen, vandalized, or repossessed. Drivers constantly have their licenses suspended or revoked for failing to keep the paperwork straight or pay fees or appear in traffic court. Habitual drunks who are banned for life from driving often get the urge to get behind the wheel again. Given this continuous state of vehicle emergency, clueless people often insist that friends lend them vehicles as a test of their friendship.

When your friends ask to borrow your car, it’s a heavy burden. But don’t do as the clueless do. Be smart about this. I suggest the following responses when your friends or family ask to borrow your car. These responses will keep you and your vehicle out of trouble.

1.
Ask why they can’t drive their own car. If their licenses are suspended or revoked, it’s illegal for them to drive your car. You can go to jail for lending to your car to them.

2.
Offer to drive your friends wherever they need to go.

3.
Say your insurance agent (or a cop!) just gave you a stern warning not to lend your car to anyone. Agonize over this dilemma. Some drama, even tears, might be appropriate. “You’re such a good friend! I just hate to say no!”

3.
Offer to run errands for them.

4.
As an emergency technique (if their friendship is worth it) offer them $50 as part of the cost of a rental car.

Whatever you do,
do not lend your car to anyone who is not a named insured on your insurance policy and who is not authorized in writing by you to drive the vehicle
.

FORGET THE RADAR DETECTOR. YOUR CAR’S THE REFLECTOR!

Forget radar detectors, gang. They don’t work well and are illegal in some states. Increasingly, traffic patrols use lasers, which, unlike radar, give an instantaneous reading. By the time your detector warns of a laser hit, you’re already hammered. First, some truthful disclosure here. I do use a radar detector, but for heaven’s sake, do as I
advise
, not as I actually
do
. Remember, I have advantages.

I’m a golden-tongued lawyer with years of experience in interrogation. I can say almost anything convincingly. You can’t.

I drive a Ford Crown Victoria that looks (on purpose) like an undercover law enforcement vehicle. This generally gets me a pass with the cops.

I’m a former cop and FBI agent. You aren
^’
t. Of course, after the publication of this book I expect to be arrested at least weekly.

Cops know all about radar detectors and how to defeat them. They generally aim radar at an angle so that the signal will not register until it’s too late. They also set up on the low side of a hill so that the radar emissions are blocked until the last second. This means that your radar detector merely detects the fact that you’re about to get hammered. Whoopee.

Cops use hills to block radar emissions from oncoming vehicles’ radar detectors. Once you’re over the top and your box starts to squawk, you’re already toast. Cops also are adept at aiming radar at acute angles from roadside hiding places to accomplish the same thing.

BIKES, YIKES!

One of the “advancements” in law enforcement that truly disgusts me is the extension of vehicle laws to bicycles and the use of proactive policing techniques to pile felony charges onto children. Every criminal attorney in my city has cases of children
arrested
and
jailed
for such crimes as riding a bicycle at night without a light, riding without a helmet, and riding with their buddies on the handlebars. This enforcement is highly selective and never,
ever
occurs in wealthy neighborhoods. Poor kids, primarily poor black kids, are just Hoovered up into the system in industrial-sized quantities.

Poor kids often buy bikes at flea markets or pawnshops or from street vendors. Kids and their parents can be unaware that these bikes are often stolen, and that police have records on their computers of the vehicle identification numbers (VINs) of stolen bikes, especially the expensive ones. When a cop stops a kid on a bike and runs the VIN and finds the bike was stolen, the child is immediately charged with possession of stolen property.

Middle-class and wealthy people ride bicycles for fun and exercise. Poor people ride them out of necessity. Many poor people ride bikes to work and to stores because they have neither cars nor valid driver’s licenses. Poor children ride bikes because they’re their only means of transport. Their mothers often cannot drive or are at work or at home taking care of other children. There are no soccer moms hauling kids around in shiny vans in the ghettos, barrios, and trailer parks. Children have to ride bikes or walk to get anywhere.

Poor kids are more likely than middle-class kids to be afraid of police. They have been told scary stories by adults. Like their parents, they often do not have good manners and have no idea how to speak and behave around police. They are more likely to flee police or to flail their arms while being taken into custody. This will get them charged with battery on a law enforcement officer on top of the usual charges of fleeing, resisting, and lying. Thus, one moment a kid is riding down the street; the next, he’s in the slammer facing a long list of felony charges, a stretch on the criminal justice and social services plantations, and a lifetime on the electronic plantation. This outrage can only be removed by legislation at the state or city level. In the meantime, you’ve got to protect your kids or your younger brothers and sisters.

Buy only new bicycles from stores.

Make sure that the bikes have lights and that the children use them.

Instruct the children to wear helmets where required and not to carry people on the handlebars.