Arrest-Proof Yourself (33 page)

Even though certain locations are not high-crime areas, they have a medium arrestability quotient due to in-house security staff and sophisticated video surveillance and antitheft devices. Such places include schools, casinos, airports, sports stadiums, and stores. Locations with the lowest arrest potential are private homes, workplaces, police stations, and courthouses. The last two are so full of cops that committing a crime there is not merely clueless but mentally deranged.

HOW THE SHARKS HUNT

Think of cops as sharks with large brains and high-tech enhancements. Their hunting behaviors are almost identical to those of higher predators. They approach everyone as quarry. For prey identification, they utilize all their senses. They look with the edges of their eyes at night to detect motion with the more sensitive rods at the periphery of the retina. They listen for the rustle of grass, the rumble of a car motor, the clank of a round being chambered in an automatic weapon. They can smell guilt and fear when suspects exude a stench derived from proteins and oils excreted during stress.

Cops seek indications of whether a suspect is nervous or guilty. A twist of the head or flick of the eyes tells them the suspect is about to bolt. Often they will touch someone they’re interviewing to discover whether the person is tense. Every cop has to decide whether the person encountered is citizen (nonarrestable) or prey (arrestable). If one or two cop/sharks are not sufficient, they will call up reinforcements for cooperative hunts that seal off a block or neighborhood. When their eyes, ears, and noses are not sensitive enough, they can spin up a helicopter with forward-looking infrared (FLIR) scanners that detect the prey’s body heat. They can use high-tech microphones to listen and ultra-miniature video cameras and fiber optics to watch, even inside buildings. Once you have been acquired as a target, resistance, as they say, is futile.

So stay away from these predators. Don’t annoy or defy them. They
will
get you.

13

WHATCHA GONNA DO WHEN THEY COME FOR YOU?
¹³

I
t’s action time. Imagine that you’re on the street. You see blue lights. You hear the siren whoop. You listen to the unmistakable roar of the Crown Vic cruiser. Quick! Whatcha gonna do?

Answer: nothing.

Police are visual predators. Any sudden change in motion, speed, direction, or behavior immediately attracts their attention. It’s an incongruity. I can expand this advice by saying:
whatever you were doing before the police appeared, keep doing it
.

If you were a hoodlum strutting down the street, keep strutting.

If you were leaning on a light pole and staring at the sky, keep staring.

If you were arguing with a woman, keep arguing. (Women will help you.)

If your shoes were untied, leave them untied.

If you were walking the dog, keep the pooch moving.

If your hat was on sideways, leave it sideways.

If you were dancing, don
^’
t let your feet lose the beat.

If you were carrying something, keep carrying it.

If you were hiding, stay hidden.

Police watching the scene are aware of a pattern of people, place, and motion. Change triggers the urge to hunt and pursue. This sounds easy to avoid, but it’s not. It’s natural to feel guilty around police. You immediately start thinking about dumb or illegal things you have done (or are doing). So what things trigger the police’s hunting urge?

pulling your hat brim down to cover your face