[rcxdude]

No, but online is where you see this advice being most commonly posted and repeated. Second-most might be in lawyer's offices, but a) most people don't interact with lawyers, especially not in the context of criminal investigations, and b) the lawyers themselves have a distorted view of this system, because they are almost always dealing with people who, for one reason or another, should not talk to the police.

[watwut]

Using "terminally online" for "the advice layers consistently give both online and offline but people don't follow" is, imo, using that term incorrectly. "Terminally online" is derogatory term which involves you doing or thinking something insane. If literal layers give that advice in their literal offices and wherever they go around, it is simply "rarely followed advice".

And I will also claim that layers have way less distorted view of the system then us, people whose view of the system is based on movies and rare cases that hit the news.

[rcxdude]

I will point out that the original poster did not say "terminally online", but "very online". (oh, and "extremely online"). I don't personally feel that has the same kind of connotations.

[tptacek]

Category error. Points can be valid and salient mostly online at the same time.

Though: the validity of "nobody should ever talk to the police" is highly disputable. It assumes the only objective anybody would have in a police encounter is not being prosecuted. Prosecution is unlikely, and there are other important objectives.

[boring_twenties]

No, that's not what it assumes at all. For example, another objective would be avoiding the situation described in the article the rest of us are commenting on.

[Hikikomori]

The context they make these statements is when you are a person of interest to the police, if you are just a witness to an event unrelated to you its different. But people mostly just say 'never' without regard of the situation.

Not that its always benign to do in cases like this, you can easily talk yourself into becoming a person of interest. Especially true if the officer happens to have a 'bad day' or is a bad apple, you can't really tell because the police keeps employing these people. An example I saw a woman went into the station to provide a video from their phone as evidence of some event and ending up getting taken to the ground in the lobby and arrested for resisting arrest or some bullshit. All because the officer tried to snatch the phone out of her hand without saying anything and then used her keeping hold of the phone as a reason for assaulting her.

[watwut]

> The context they make these statements is when you are a person of interest to the police, if you are just a witness to an event unrelated to you its different. But people mostly just say 'never' without regard of the situation.

Not true, the context I have seen it very much included being a witness who is not a person of interest to the police. It especially explicitly included that situation.

> An example I saw a woman went into the station to provide a video from their phone as evidence of some event and ending up getting taken to the ground in the lobby and arrested for resisting arrest or some bullshit. All because the officer tried to snatch the phone out of her hand without saying anything and then used her keeping hold of the phone as a reason for assaulting her.

That is egregious abuse of power. The layers I have in mind were not explicitly mentioning that high level of lawlessness from the police.

[Hikikomori]

>Not true, the context I have seen it very much included being a witness who is not a person of interest to the police. It especially explicitly included that situation.

Even without context, its good advice. By talking to them you might even be confessing to some crime that you didn't even know exist.

>That is egregious abuse of power. The layers I have in mind were not explicitly mentioning that high level of lawlessness from the police.

That's the entire point. This idealized version of the police you seem to have, maybe some European countries come close it due to their requirements on officers and training, is not reality. Departments allow officers that act like this to resign so they can move to a different department.