Re: I always love in the TV shows when... - Edit 1
Before modification by BlackAdder at 02/06/2010 04:37:45 AM
Also, know the difference between being arrested vs. being detained and what they and you are entitled to do in each case.
the cops tell someone. "You need to go downtown and talk with us now." and the person is like, "Uh. OK. Give me a ride, right?"
I've actually done that once, when I was an unaware college student/sheeple.
Close to the Canadian border, the Border Patrol pulled me over and I was going over 90 on the interstate. But they can't write speeding tickets so that wasn't it. They claimed I had crossed the border illegally and suspected me of smuggling drugs/people across. I did not have my passport on me, and apparently they could not look up my citizenship info from everything I'd given them (DL, SSN, student ID).
They asked me to drive with them to their station and continue the questioning there, and I did. I had done nothing wrong, but I wasn't sure what would have happened if I had refused (probably arrested).
They were really fixated on my being a smuggler and their questioning was, as you described, crafty. Thankfully, I did not trip up too badly and my parents were eventually able to fax over citizenship docs. But what really cleared it was allowing them to search my car. I did not think anything of it at the time, but I would not allow that today.