How not to interact with the police

Several decades ago, back in my socialist college days in Washington in the 1980s, I got arrested. I was at a protest, I shot my mouth off to law enforcement in a way that was personal and aggressive, and the next thing I knew, I was in handcuffs. On the way to the holding cell, the paddy wagon driver had fun slamming on the brakes and bouncing me around in the back.

When my father arrived to pick me up hours later, there wasn’t any talk about how innocent I was or if what the police had done was wrong. “Don’t ever call police Nazis,” Dad said. End of lesson.