[owenjones]

While I was a student living in a "gentrifying" part of the city, I once went outside to discover my car was full of bullets. Several in the hood, several through the windows, one in the rear tire and most disconcertingly one in the driver side headrest.

When I called the police and the investigator came, I could tell I was instantly suspect #1. He began grilling me lengthily about my whereabouts the night before and who I lived with.

An officer in blue joined as well and they were basically threatening to confiscate my car until I started talking about getting a lawyer.

Of course this situation is nowhere near the authors in terms of harm or even potential harm, but it definitely showed me that ANY interaction with the police has the potential to go VERY badly for you no matter what.

[bsimpson]

Where were you last night?

Shooting holes in my own car so I could waste 20 minutes of your time. Why do you ask?

[vacri]

Wasting time reminds me of a positive story about cops: At 3am, some guys thew a hammer through my driver-side window and tried to take my car to go street racing (it looked faster than it was...). The idiots jammed the handbrake on and couldn't release it. The endless revving of the engine woke up my housemate, who scared them off, then called the cops, then woke me up.

I was annoyed. Great, now we have to wait an hour for the cops to show up, and they're going to be pissed off that they had to leave the comfortable station to waste time dealing with something that they can't do anything about. Broken sleep, broken window, and now I have to manage an interaction with grumpy police.

The cops that arrived showed empathy. Yes, they couldn't do anything about it, but their underlying tone was "this was a shitty thing to have happened" rather than "why the fuck are you wasting our time". I was so taken aback by the shift in tone that I actually said the line, corny as it is, "I've lived here for 11 years and this is the first time I've had a positive experience with the Fitzroy police"

The cop searching with a torch behind my car doubled over in silent laughter while the one in front of me smirked "Actually, we're from Collingwood..."

[kybernetyk]

Wrong answer. Never try sarcasm or irony with cops. Either they don't understand it - or they just don't want to. All it does is getting you into trouble.

[csense]

> Either they don't understand it - or they just don't want to.

You missed an option: They willfully misunderstand it because they're looking for a promotion or they have to make their arrest quota.

[bsimpson]

Or with Hacker News, apparently.

[rayiner]

He assumed you were a gang member and the shooting was gang related. Which probably isn't a bad heuristic. Most of the time when gangs shoot up a rival gang members car, they don't accidentally get the wrong one.

[lhc-]

Something tells me that in those cases, the gang members don't usually call the cops to investigate it.

[owenjones]

Doesn't the fact that assumptions like these, when made by the police, can land you in jail or much worse prove the point?

What if he also assumed I was lying, drunk or armed?

[jessaustin]

Most of the time...

Citation needed.