People sometimes assume that a police officer, as a public servant, has an obligation to be honest with a suspect while talking to them. If an officer pulls you over or even brings you in for an interrogation, you may think that they have to tell you the truth. Even if they leave things out, you may assume that they cannot deliberately lie to try to manipulate you.
But the truth is often quite the opposite, and police officers are allowed to lie to suspects as they wish. This is even a specific tactic that they will sometimes use in order to manipulate young people into revealing information, giving a false confession or something else of this nature. But it can be used on adults as well – it’s just that experts note that it works especially often with young offenders.
Why would they do this?
There are a lot of situations in which the police may believe it’s beneficial to lie. For instance, perhaps they have brought two different individuals in for questioning and they are trying to get one of them to confess to a crime. They could lie to one individual and tell them that the other person already confessed. This doesn’t have to be true, but they’re just trying to trick that individual into giving them the confession they’re looking for.
What should you do?
The best thing that you can do is simply to say as little as possible to the police. You are sometimes obligated to do things like to identify yourself, such as during a traffic stop. But do not volunteer any other information and always assume that they may not be truthful with you. Take the time to look into your legal options.