Don’t Talk to the Police
Credit: Regent University School of Law on YouTube. The player loads from YouTube only after you press play.
A widely viewed law-school lecture on why talking to police without a lawyer is risky even when you believe you have done nothing wrong. General information only — not legal advice.
- Police interviews are built to gather evidence. Helpful answers are often hard to use later in your favor; damaging ones are not.
- Innocent mistakes, incomplete memory, and ordinary nervousness can look like inconsistency once your words are written into a report.
- Investigators may lawfully use tactics that feel unfair, including false statements about the evidence. You generally may not.
- The safe first step is usually to be polite, say you will not answer questions without a lawyer, and stop talking about the substance of the case.
- If a campus case is open at the same time, statements can travel between tracks. See the free Chapter 4 overview — Parallel Tracks.