no one ever tells me what to do.
Me either.
Colleen should post a story about police abuse of power!
Actually in my experience most officers are pretty conscientious and careful about this sort of thing. Every physical situation I have been involved in was initiated by suspects. And as an investigator I'm frustrated far too often about the limited information I can obtain and hoops I have to go through to obtain it. Investigations come to dead ends because of that all the time. That's the way the game is played.
I'm all about the constitutional rights!
Now on the other hand, I'm damn glad I am not a police officer in a city hosting a WTO conference or an RNC event. Yuck.
I can tell you all kinds of stories about criminal abuse of victims though. LIke the case I had with the 3 month old infant who has already suffered 12 fractured bones. Until social services took custody of the victim, I was dependent on the mom to give me permission to view the medical records. The suspect, who of course didn't give consent. It took a court hearing and a subpoena to view records of the event (the one broken bone too many that led to the baby's hospitalization) that the hospital staff was required by law to report to police.