Real English: How to talk to the POLICE

Bad boys, bad boys, what you going to do?

Well, this lesson is for you.

Okay? Welcome to engVid. I'm James. The lesson I want to do today is on, well, crime and punishment,

or in this case, I call it arrested development. I find it very strange when people go to different

countries, that they don't get a basic understanding of the law. Now, in most English-speaking

countries, what I will teach you today is true. Of course, there'll be exceptions because

each country is unique and has different rules and laws, but this basically is the way our

law system or legal system works. Okay? And "legal system" means when you will talk to

the police if there's a problem, what might happen.

So let's go to the board. Oh, sorry. We got E, prisoner E, 666.

"I ain't going back, Copper!"

Now, before some of you say: "I was told 'ain't' isn't English", we have a video on that, go

check it out. Bad grammar from a bad guy. He's a bad worm.

So let's see what happened to Mr. E, or how did he end up in this particular position

or situation? We're going to go through what will basically happen if you have to talk

to the police, and they think you have done something wrong. Remember: If you call the

police to help you, this won't happen, but if somebody has said you've done something

wrong, this is usually the way it works.

So, we'll start off, here. I'm going to mark these things to help you figure out where

they sit. So, we're playing a little game, here. What is what? Okay, so the first thing

that happens if you meet a policeman and they say... Or policewoman, sorry, a police person,

and they say: "Stop." That's number one, and that's what we have here. You know a stop

sign means don't move. Okay? Let's make this clear. A stop sign doesn't... It means don't move.

So number one thing is stop. They will stop you or ask you to stop moving.

You do so.

After they ask you to stop, they're going to ask for I.D. For some of you, you'll say:

"What is I.D.?" Well, it's identification, sort of like your passport or your country...

Some people have identification cards in their country. Funny, in Canada, we don't have this

thing. We have drivers' licenses, and we have passports, but we don't have citizenship cards,

or-sorry-citizen cards. We use our driver's license. So it might be your citizen card

that they would request. If you come to our country, they would ask you for I.D., so you

could present your passport or your citizen card. That's probably all you have. So, number

two in the process will be asking for your I.D.

Now, you notice this is orange and we have this strange word: "rights", and I'm not talking

your right hand. In Canada, the United States, Great Britain, New Zealand, Scotland, Wales,

they have rights. Or, sorry, you have rights, which mean before you do anything the police

say, you are allowed to ask certain questions. So you can say: "I know my rights." By the

way, I would never say that to a policeman who stopped you. You're just asking for trouble.

But, at the time they ask you to stop or they ask you to give I.D., you can then start using

your rights. One of the first things you can say is:

"Hi, Officer, what's your name or badge number?"

In Canada, they must give it to you. Okay? But be smart, ask nicely, like:

"Okay, no problem, Officer. I just want to know: Who am I talking to?

I just want to know I'm talking to the law."

The officer will then either point to their shoulder where

there is a number located, or they'll say their name, which is usually located on the

front of their shirt. So: "Officer Johnson, 531 Division." You go: "Thank you, Officer."

You can then say this... Remember, each time you're doing this, police don't usually like

being questioned, so always be polite. Don't flunk the attitude test. I'll explain that

to you after. So then you can say:

"Officer, why am I being stopped?"

The officer at that time, especially if they ask for your I.D. must tell you why you're being stopped. Okay?

This will lead to... Well, we go up to here, being charged, but let's go here first.

You can then say, before they do anything else:

"Am I under arrest?"

If the officer says: "You're not under arrest", you may walk away.

You can leave. You can still be polite,

and I recommend that, but you don't have to answer any of their questions, because once

the officer has told you why he stopped you or she has stopped you, if you are not under

arrest, you do not need to speak anymore. If they ask further questions, you can say:

"If I'm not under arrest and you want more from me, I need to talk to a lawyer first,

because I don't know why I'm standing here."

These are your basic rights in Canada, United

States, and Great Britain. As I said, each country varies, so be careful. Okay?

And always, always, always be polite.

Now, let's just say you a bad boy or a bad girl. Well, we've gone past the rights stage,

and the stop, and the I.D., they have to tell you what you're charged with. That means you've

done something wrong, and that means you cannot walk away from the police at that point. This

is called... You say:

"Am I being charged with anything?"

They must tell you what you have done.

"We think you killed somebody.",

"We think you stole a car.",

"We think you hit someone."

At this point, something is going to happen, either one or two things. Oh, this is not

the good part. If it's a small thing, and we call it "not criminal", meaning you didn't

do anything that they need to put you in jail for, you will get a fine. What kind of things?

If you're driving your castal-... Your car a little too fast, or if you drop... Actually,

this is true, drop garbage in certain places where you're not supposed to drop your garbage.

You don't put it away, you drop it on the floor, the police can walk up to you and say:

"I'm going to give you a fine."

They will give you a ticket. You'll notice this. And

if you can't read this, you shouldn't. This is called fine print, it's very fine, very

small. But the fine is clear: Here's what you did, here's the money you pay. Okay? So

when we say "fine", it's money you have to pay them. Okay? That's here. That's a good

thing, because then you can go free. You get the paper, you pay this later. We'll go into

a court afterwards.

But if it's not a fine and it's something you've done that's very bad, the police will

arrest you. That means they will stop you and say:

"You must come with us. You have no choice in that."

You can still follow the rights, you've asked this and asked for your

lawyer, but you will have to go with them. Arresting is similar to stopping. They're

not just stopping you, they're stopping and taking you.

Now, once you've been arrested, you can ask for your lawyer. You can also get what's called

"bail". It's another way of getting out of, well, jail. We have "bail" and "jail". Jail

is where you're going to go. When they arrest you, you go to jail. You will be staying there

until you have a court date, which we'll get to. But you can get out if you have bail money.

Bail. You'll go: "What is bail?" Well, the simplest way I can explain it is when you

have water in one area and you need to move that water to one area to another, we usually

take something smaller, and we pick it up, we take it up and we take it out, and let

it go. And we call "bailing water". The bailing is taking you out of prison so that you are

free. We are removing you and letting you go free. Okay? So you will need bail, which

is usually a lot of money so you can actually leave the jail.

Are your troubles over? No. That's why there's two parts to this lesson. This is the arrest part.

The next one we're going to do is on court and your day in court. What will happen,

how you can get out, and if it doesn't work out for you, how bad it can get. Anyway, we're

going to go and do... I want to explain rules and law, and do a little quiz with you to

make sure you understand these six steps... Six steps that happen, all the way from being

stopped to requiring bail. Are you ready?

[Snaps]

Now, just before we do the quiz, I want to go over something that students ask about:

rules versus laws, because sometimes they're exactly the same. Actually, they seem the

same, but they are different. Rules are like games. When you play Monopoly or you play

any game, like soccer or football or rugby, there are rules. The police will never come

when you play these games, and take you and arrest you if you break a rule. Even if you

cheat on a test at school, that means not to follow the rules, you won't get arrested,

but there are punishments. Laws are a little different. They're more serious;

you can get in a lot of trouble.

So let's take a look at something basic to help you remember rules vering-... Rules versus

laws. In your classrooms, you have rules; in the cities and in countries, we have laws.

Rules are personal. You can have your own personal rules. I'm always five minutes early,

or I take off my shoes, or please take off your shoes when you come to my house. These

are rules. They're flexible. You can take off the shoes, but if you're the President

of the United States, I'll let you wear your shoes in my house; it's flexible. Okay? If

you're five minutes late, it's okay. It's flexible. There's no punishment, or no trouble

or problem for you. Rules are made by people, individual people. All right? You can make

them. I can make a rule. People who make games make rules. Anyone can make rules.

Oh, sorry, and I should say organizations. For instance, at your company, there are rules. You have

a 10-minute break, not a 30-minute break. If you take 15, they cannot call the police

on you. That's just too bad, but you did break a rule.

And rules have light punishment. If you're a child, you might think rules are terrible,

but they are practice for laws, which I'll get into. Where if you do something wrong,

like you don't clean your room, there's a punishment. Maybe you don't get to play with

your friends. It's a light punishment. Not prison. Yeah. No boom, boom, no. Well, maybe

in your house, but most people, no. Okay?

Laws are different, they are made by governments. So your city government, your provincial,

or your state government, or your country's government, they make laws. They are not flexible.

Killing, there is no:

"Ah, it was a Tuesday, Bob, and rainy, we understand."

You killed, you kill, not flexible. You must face the law. They're made by governments and courts.

So your President cannot just make laws. Your President, he or she must go back to the other

people in government, talk to them, and then they talk to the courts, and they decide if

this is a good law that they can use with the other laws. So it's not just somebody

wakes up and says: "We make new laws today."

And finally, the police can make you do it. If it's a law, the police can stop you and say:

"You must do this now, or you must stop doing this now, or we will take away your freedom and arrest you."

Not for rules. Okay? So you basically understand that. Next time

your teacher says: "I have a rule", you can say: "It's not a law. I don't have to do it."

And they'll have to go: "Yes, for now."

All right, now let's go to the board and we're going to do a quick quiz or a fill in the

blanks. You did the lesson before. Let's see how well you remember. But just before you

do that, I want to give you a little extra, a couple of phrases I didn't give you before

that you should be aware of.

When you "break the law", it means you do not follow the laws

that are written: Do not kill, do not steal. Okay? That means the police can be involved.

Breaking the law can also be hitting another person with your car. The police are involved.

The law is: Do not hit another car while driving or sitting still. You must not do this, so

if you do that, you have broken the law.

Now, the police can be a little bit flexible. I kind of lied before, they can say:

"Let you off with a warning", which means maybe you did something like, I don't know, you

were riding your bicycle, doo-doo-doo-doo-doo, there was a stop sign and you kept riding

your bicycle; you didn't stop. The police can say:

-"[Whistles] Stop! Come here. There's

a stop sign there. Did you see it?"

-"Yes, Officer, I did."

-"Well, you're supposed to get a $20 fine, but because you were nice, I'm going to let you off with a warning."

Meaning: -"Next time I see you, you get a ticket or a fine."

-"Whew, thanks, Officer."

Okay? That means they let you go.

"Under arrest" is this, when they put those... That funny thing I drew, handcuffs on you,

and you go to jail. So if I say: "You're under arrest", it means you've done something wrong,

I have enough... Or I have enough reasons to take you in. They call the reasons "evidence".

So they have enough evidence to take you to jail.

And finally, this is probably the most important thing I can tell you: the attitude test.

The police, when they stop you, give you a test. It's called "the attitude test". The attitude

test goes like this, when a police officer stops you, you don't say: "What?" You say:

"Hello, Officer."

When the policeman says: "Where...? Do you know how fast you were driving?"

You have to say: "No, Officer, I'm not too sure",

and then smile again, even though you

know you were driving 100 kilometres too fast, because if you say:

"Yeah, I've got a speedometer, I can see it",

you are going to, what they call:

"flunk the attitude test".

With the police: Smile and be polite. Think of them as your parents that can really, really hurt

you. Okay? So you always have to be good, and don't flunk... "Flunk" means to do poorly

on a test. Don't flunk the attitude test, because you will be arrested. I'm sure every

policeman is going: "Here, here, thanks for saying it." I'm not doing it for you guys;

I'm doing it for the other people. Be polite, be respectful, even though sometimes they

may not be respectful with you. Okay? Don't flunk that attitude test,

and you won't be under arrest.

Okay, time for the quiz.

"Mr. E was __________ by Officer James."

Let me see, Officer James walks up:

"Hey, E, come here. Come here for a second."

Now, Mr. E was doing something. What do you think

was happening, or what do you think happened if Officer James did something?

This always happens first.

That's right. "Stopped". Officer James, by saying:

"E, come here", stopped him.

"Mr. E was stopped by Officer James."

"Officer James asked for Mr. E's __________." What?

What do you think he would ask for?

His phone number? I don't think so. E is cute, but what he probably asked for

was his identification.

So, he would have to go:

"Here, Officer, here's my I.D."

So the police would check:

"You look like the worm in the window."

"Mr. E asked if he was under __________."

Do you remember we talked about your rights?

You're allowed to ask this question to any police officer, well, in North America, England,

Scotland, and Wales.

That's right: "if he was under arrest",

because if he was under arrest, he must do what the officer says and must stop.

If not, he is free to go. So he's

doing his legal rights and just checking. Still polite.

"No, said Officer James, you didn't _____ _____ _____."

What didn't he do? Hmm.

That's right: he didn't "break the law". Officer James cannot... See?

"Break the law". Cannot arrest Mr. E if he didn't break the law, so there must be some

other reason he stopped him. So:

"No, said Officer James, you didn't break the law. You must stop at this stop sign. Now you can go."

So, Mr. E didn't do anything wrong, so he's a free worm; he can go along. He just probably

didn't see the stop sign, so he was let off with a warning. Right? The Officer said:

"You must stop at the stop sign." That was your warning.

Maybe next time E goes to jail.

Well, my time is up. Thank heavens I don't have to go to jail, but I would like you to

go to www.eng as in English, there's my E, it's upside down and backwards, V as in video.com,

engVid (www.engVid.com) where you can do the quiz to find out how well you would do if

you were stopped by a police officer.

Once again, thanks a lot for tuning in or coming to the station, or...

And don't forget to subscribe.

Have a good day.