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fandomhigh2019-02-04 09:14 am
biotic_psychotic) wrote in fandomhigh2019-02-04 09:14 am
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Civics - Art of Civil Disobedience Monday 4th Period
The class had been handwavey given notice to meet in the Danger Room. She'd taken some time with the program and searched up images of police officers at various levels from obnoxious mall cops to FBI agents. The simulacrums were standing quietly and blankly against a wall. She'd stuck with Earth law enforcement officers and she'd resisted the urge to make one of Liam or Diaz. Because she was a mature, responsible adult.
The room was scheduled to shift through different scenarios through the class. On a sidewalk, in a mall, at a party, at a protest rally. Twelve minutes each.
When the class filed in, Jack was leaning against a wall with her arms crossed over her chest. She announced lazily, "For the record, what's on your syllabus is the pretty phrasing so administration didn't get twitchy. What you'll be learning today is how to resist arrest. Sort of. You'll be learning what rights you have and what rights the cops have if you ever find yourself questioned by one. The main f..freaking thing to know is: On Earth, you don't have to answer everything law enforcement asks you and you shouldn't. The best thing you can do for yourself is to shut the hell up. The police are not your friends. They're not friendly. They're not there to be your advocate or help you. Not ever; even if you're the one who called them. Even if you think you got nothing to hide."
She pushed off the wall and walked forward. "There's a saying," in criminal circles, "'If no-one talks, everyone walks.' The police gotta prove that there was a crime and then they gotta prove you had something to do with it. Never make it easy for them. Even if you're guilty as hell you but especially if you're innocent. Law enforcement can stop you for any reason or no reason. They can ask questions. There's not that many you gotta answer. You gotta give 'em your name and address if they ask for it or provide your ID if they ask for it. Most of you won't have one." Jack looked over them, "You will by the time this semester's over. We'll get into making them or getting 'em made later. Other than that, there's only a few things you should ever say to law enforcement without your very own lawyer present."
"First: Cop comes up and starts to chat. Seems casual enough. What's your name, you live around here? You can answer those but you don't gotta give them more than your name and 'yes' or 'no'. Don't gesture toward your house, don't give the address unless they ask. They continue all friendly, asking if you know the neighborhood, if you know someone specific from the neighborhood or if you go to a store nearby - and this is when you shut up. The next thing out of your mouth should be 'I'm sorry, Officer, I've got somewhere to be. Am I free to go?'"
Jack paused a moment to let that sink in. "If the officer says yes, you calmly walk away and you get on the next bus or train or grab a cab and you get somewhere safe. If you're close enough to get back to the island, you get back to the island and you get your as..butts to the school or to Caritas. Then you call a teacher and you tell them what happened. If the officer gives you a wishy-washy answer or says he has a few more questions or something that ain't a deliberate 'yes', you calmly say you really have to be somewhere and you ask, 'Am I being detained or am I free to go?' If they don't give you a 'yes', if they keep asking where you gotta be, what's so important, you calmly and apologetically say 'I'm sorry but I don't want to talk about my day. Am I free to go?' Cuz they'll try to get you to stay there and talk. They'll be friendly usually but sometimes they'll start to get threatening and make it sound like if you didn't have something to hide, you'd stay and chat. You don't stay and chat. You don't get aggressive. You just calmly insist you have somewhere to be and you keep asking if you're free to go until you get a yes or no."
Tilted her head, "If you get a 'no' or 'not right now', then your next question is 'Am I under arrest?' If they say 'yes', you ask why they are arresting you. They gotta tell you. All you gotta tell them is name and address and then you tell them you want to remain silent until your lawyer is present. If they want to pat you down, you let them. If they tell you to empty your pockets, you calmly say 'I do not consent to be searched at this time. I wish to remain silent until my lawyer is present.' And you don't say anything else. They might cuff you, put you in a police car and take you to an interrogation room. You stay calm and let them do it without fighting. You stay silent or you answer only with 'I wish to remain silent until my lawyer is present'. As soon as you can get a phone call in - and they gotta give you one - you call a teacher and you tell them you've been arrested and where you are. You all got my number. You call me if you need to. Anytime, day or night or whatever. I won't give you shit even if you got yourself in the trouble. I will come get you. Post bail, get you a lawyer, whatever it takes to get you out of custody and back here. Pretty much all of your teachers would. Those of us on this island? We take care of our own."
She wasn't certain about the Dean.
"Cop says you're not under arrest, you ask if you're free to go until they say yes and then you go. You stay calm. You keep asking. You don't say anything else. That's most of what you need to know. The rest happens if you're arrested. I gave you what you do if you're alone. You stay silent, you call for help and then you shut the f..heck up some more until help gets there."
Jack's gaze roamed over the class. "If you're in a group, it'll be different. Cops will try to separate you and turn you all against one another. They'll tell you your friends already told them about whatever it is they want to know. They'll tell you that you'll get a better deal if you talk first. They'll threaten all sorts of things and try to beat you down with words and scare you or shake you up or confuse you until you talk. Cops can say anything and they will lie their fool heads off if they think it'll get you to talk. You don't. Besides it being a bad idea ever to talk to cops, you do not turn yourself into the rat on your group. I don't care if you hate the steaming guts of every single other student you're with. I don't care if they're all guilty but you were the innocent bystander. You don't rat out your peers. This is a small island and everyone more or less makes it work. Believe me when I say you do not want to be known as a rat. You also have a better chance of all of you getting out of it if you stick together and stay silent."
"We're gonna go through variousmodded or handwaved scenarios for the next 40 minutes. Let you get a chance to test this out before it ever happens for real. You need to jump into at least one but you can do more if you want."
[ocd is..now up.]
The room was scheduled to shift through different scenarios through the class. On a sidewalk, in a mall, at a party, at a protest rally. Twelve minutes each.
When the class filed in, Jack was leaning against a wall with her arms crossed over her chest. She announced lazily, "For the record, what's on your syllabus is the pretty phrasing so administration didn't get twitchy. What you'll be learning today is how to resist arrest. Sort of. You'll be learning what rights you have and what rights the cops have if you ever find yourself questioned by one. The main f..freaking thing to know is: On Earth, you don't have to answer everything law enforcement asks you and you shouldn't. The best thing you can do for yourself is to shut the hell up. The police are not your friends. They're not friendly. They're not there to be your advocate or help you. Not ever; even if you're the one who called them. Even if you think you got nothing to hide."
She pushed off the wall and walked forward. "There's a saying," in criminal circles, "'If no-one talks, everyone walks.' The police gotta prove that there was a crime and then they gotta prove you had something to do with it. Never make it easy for them. Even if you're guilty as hell you but especially if you're innocent. Law enforcement can stop you for any reason or no reason. They can ask questions. There's not that many you gotta answer. You gotta give 'em your name and address if they ask for it or provide your ID if they ask for it. Most of you won't have one." Jack looked over them, "You will by the time this semester's over. We'll get into making them or getting 'em made later. Other than that, there's only a few things you should ever say to law enforcement without your very own lawyer present."
"First: Cop comes up and starts to chat. Seems casual enough. What's your name, you live around here? You can answer those but you don't gotta give them more than your name and 'yes' or 'no'. Don't gesture toward your house, don't give the address unless they ask. They continue all friendly, asking if you know the neighborhood, if you know someone specific from the neighborhood or if you go to a store nearby - and this is when you shut up. The next thing out of your mouth should be 'I'm sorry, Officer, I've got somewhere to be. Am I free to go?'"
Jack paused a moment to let that sink in. "If the officer says yes, you calmly walk away and you get on the next bus or train or grab a cab and you get somewhere safe. If you're close enough to get back to the island, you get back to the island and you get your as..butts to the school or to Caritas. Then you call a teacher and you tell them what happened. If the officer gives you a wishy-washy answer or says he has a few more questions or something that ain't a deliberate 'yes', you calmly say you really have to be somewhere and you ask, 'Am I being detained or am I free to go?' If they don't give you a 'yes', if they keep asking where you gotta be, what's so important, you calmly and apologetically say 'I'm sorry but I don't want to talk about my day. Am I free to go?' Cuz they'll try to get you to stay there and talk. They'll be friendly usually but sometimes they'll start to get threatening and make it sound like if you didn't have something to hide, you'd stay and chat. You don't stay and chat. You don't get aggressive. You just calmly insist you have somewhere to be and you keep asking if you're free to go until you get a yes or no."
Tilted her head, "If you get a 'no' or 'not right now', then your next question is 'Am I under arrest?' If they say 'yes', you ask why they are arresting you. They gotta tell you. All you gotta tell them is name and address and then you tell them you want to remain silent until your lawyer is present. If they want to pat you down, you let them. If they tell you to empty your pockets, you calmly say 'I do not consent to be searched at this time. I wish to remain silent until my lawyer is present.' And you don't say anything else. They might cuff you, put you in a police car and take you to an interrogation room. You stay calm and let them do it without fighting. You stay silent or you answer only with 'I wish to remain silent until my lawyer is present'. As soon as you can get a phone call in - and they gotta give you one - you call a teacher and you tell them you've been arrested and where you are. You all got my number. You call me if you need to. Anytime, day or night or whatever. I won't give you shit even if you got yourself in the trouble. I will come get you. Post bail, get you a lawyer, whatever it takes to get you out of custody and back here. Pretty much all of your teachers would. Those of us on this island? We take care of our own."
She wasn't certain about the Dean.
"Cop says you're not under arrest, you ask if you're free to go until they say yes and then you go. You stay calm. You keep asking. You don't say anything else. That's most of what you need to know. The rest happens if you're arrested. I gave you what you do if you're alone. You stay silent, you call for help and then you shut the f..heck up some more until help gets there."
Jack's gaze roamed over the class. "If you're in a group, it'll be different. Cops will try to separate you and turn you all against one another. They'll tell you your friends already told them about whatever it is they want to know. They'll tell you that you'll get a better deal if you talk first. They'll threaten all sorts of things and try to beat you down with words and scare you or shake you up or confuse you until you talk. Cops can say anything and they will lie their fool heads off if they think it'll get you to talk. You don't. Besides it being a bad idea ever to talk to cops, you do not turn yourself into the rat on your group. I don't care if you hate the steaming guts of every single other student you're with. I don't care if they're all guilty but you were the innocent bystander. You don't rat out your peers. This is a small island and everyone more or less makes it work. Believe me when I say you do not want to be known as a rat. You also have a better chance of all of you getting out of it if you stick together and stay silent."
"We're gonna go through various
[ocd is..now up.]
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Not a typo.
Questions/Comments/Discussion
On a sidewalk
Up walks Officer Friendly to chat you up. What's your name? You live around here? You lived here long? Where's a good place for lunch? You ever been to Random Store before? You know this person? You know where they live? You ever see anything strange around? etc, etc.
Friendly and polite. If you ask if you can go he gets all wishy washy and says he's just got some more questions, won't take much more of your time.
In a mall
But they're not a cop. They're a mall security officer. They think you've been shoplifting. Maybe you have and maybe you haven't. They demand you empty your pockets or your bag. Demand you come to the security office for questioning. Threaten to call someone in charge of you. Threaten to get you banned from the mall or kicked out of school or even arrested.
Party bust
Cops bust in through the doors and start yelling for everyone to stay put, hands behind your heads, down on the ground, up against a wall.
If you run, they chase you.
Protest rally
There are police surrounding the group. They have riot shields. They don't seem to be doing anything except standing there menacing you.
Until someone throws a rock.
Talk to Jack
Talk to the TA
OOC
Feel free to mod your encounter, handwave it, or ping me to have Jack jump in for help or whatnot. Today's going to be very sp because it rained and froze and now it's snowing so traffic is garbage. All my appointment rides are slow. :P
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Re: Talk to the TA
Re: Questions/Comments/Discussion
Astrid was no stranger to the police, after all. Not only did she hold a prestigious honor of being one of the few humanoid creatures to have spent time in the holding cell on this very island, but she was there when they came to arrest their mother. She still had dreams about it...nightmares, really...shouting men wielding guns, busting down the door, dragging her mother out of her bed, her naked body glowing like moonlight among the black shirts. Schutzstaffel! she shouted. Nazis! Durch Ihre Verordnung, mein Fuhre.
Then they came for Astrid, one week later, as she slept and waited like a dog on Michael's couch. Did they watch Sunset Boulevard that week? Or was she merely filling in a blank from her earlier class, wanting it to have been some sign, some warning that she missed? They'd given her fifteen minutes to make up her mind on what to take, but she probably hadn't even needed that long. And then she was dragged down, like Persephone into the underworld (polytheism in the last class; another sign? Were they all there for her to see, and she just had her eyes closed?), to live underground, in the house of sleep, in the house of plastic sheets and crying babies and brown roses in drifts, forty down, ninety-two across. Three thousand six hundred and eighty brown roses.
It was a year of mouths, opening and closing, asking the same questions, saying the same things. Just tell us what happened. Tell us what we want to know. She wanted to help, but she didn't know how. A year of silence; they thought she had a disability, were surprised more that she'd spoken when she threatened her roommate at knifepoint than they were at the actual threat. Astrid wasn't a rat, but she wasn't a liar, either. She knew how to stay silent; she didn't need Jack telling her how.
After all, she was just one authority figure she didn't know telling her not to trust other authority figures she didn't know. It was all kind of the same, just different packaging.
So this was a fun class for her, and she sucked in a breath as she listened, telling herself that it was just one class period, she could suck it up and pull through it, and then it would be over, and she could put it all behind her.
Try to, anyway.
She wondered if she should apologize to Sabine for the restless night ahead to now or tomorrow...
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And bonus: these tricks were going to piss Aunt Mall Cop off
so hard.Re: On a sidewalk
They were doing something instead of just talking about it!
Mae was so much better at doing than talking. She was even better at smashing than doing, but hey, this was still a step in the right direction!
Re: Party bust
Whether she got caught or not, it didn't matter in here, and she wasn't about to be the one who got rusty if she could help it.
Re: Party bust
Besides, knowing this class, knowing most people in this school, she was banking on a lot of them trying to run, which she expected would mean they'd be a little less concerned with the ones just following orders and not causing any more trouble.
Re: Party bust
They chased Vette around the room and they were steadily gaining.
Re: Party bust
Re: On a sidewalk
Re: On a sidewalk
There, she was already implying she had somewhere she needed to be. Foundation laid.
Re: Party bust
"Hmmm, nah," Vette replied, laughing and slipping through the door. "It's filthy down there."