Originally Posted by channa
That seems to imply they only have this one opportunity to speak, or forever hold their peace which is not the case. If you say that to someone who's scared or unsure of what to say (if anything), it may extract an unnecessary statement.
...just another reason people don't trust the cops.
I think you need to allow for at least the possibility that I was only trying to find out what happened, and didn't foresee having to arrest anybody. Your relationships with cops are far more likely to be adversarial if you start out expecting that they will be.