Police officers hold positions of great public responsibility. So you might assume that when they tell you something, it will be true
Unfortunately, this is not the case. What’s more, a police officer lying to you may be totally legal.
Lying is a valid police interview tactic
When the police interview a person about a crime, they can resort to a wide range of tactics, one of which is lying. They see it as a valid tactic because it can help them pressure a person to speak up or admit to a crime. Here is an example:
A police officer pulls you and a friend in for questioning over an alleged theft from a local premises. They keep you apart and interview you one at a time, going from room to room between you. Neither of you is giving them any information, so they switch tactics. They enter your room and tell you that your friend has just confessed. What’s more, they claim your friend said you were the one who took the goods, and whose idea it was. All they did was reluctantly keep watch.
It might be true that your friends said all of that. Or maybe they said none of it. Maybe they have not uttered a single word the whole time. You have no way of knowing as you cannot see or hear them.
The police may be telling you this to try and trick you into saying something. They may be hoping you will blurt out something like, “That’s not true. All I did was stand by the door and keep a lookout. My friend was the person who put the goods in their pocket and walked out the door without paying.” If you said that, you would have given them the information they were after. You would have confessed that you and your friend were at the store and one of you stole things.
If the police take you into custody, exercising your right to get legal assistance can help you avoid traps such as this that the police may set for you.
