Originally Posted by law dawg
The suspects have most of the rights and the system in their favor. Our hands are pretty well tied in many regards so I use all the tools I have to get the job done.
It should be noted that this is generally something I would do if I was pretty far into it with a suspect. It would not be something I did in an intial interview, but only in one where I was very sure the person was guilty and was being evasive or lying outright.
Regardless of my feelings about making things up to extract a confession, that seems to be a different game from making up a law to threaten/intimidate someone performing a perfectly legal activity. Personally, I think it's unethical. Seems like abuse of power to me, and I would hope such activity would be vigorously punished.
There's a reason the suspect has most of the rights on paper. You have the gun and all of the power/force. You can beat/shoot the suspect, and if he fights back in self-defense he gets charged with resisting and assault on a LEO even if you were wrong or abusive.
LEOs scare me. I'm generally not a lawbreaker, so they really shouldn't. The fact that they scare me is an indication something is wrong with the system.