What you should do when contacted by the Police.
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Interviewer: Do you have a lot of people that say, "Hey I got a call from a detective, and they want me to come speak to them. Should I do it?" What happens if the police call you, and they literally say, "You're not under arrest, but we want to speak to you about something." What should people do, and what does that mean?
Robert Callahan: Well, if you get a call from a detective, especially anywhere around Chicago, they are calling because it is a serious matter. They are so overwhelmed and so busy that the people that actually get phone calls or detectives stopping by their house are usually in some type of situation which is relatively serious, or should at least be treated seriously from the outside. This is because that is one of the tactics they use for getting people into a room where they can intimidate them or coerce them into incriminating themselves.
So, what they will do, and I have had experience with this from day one, is they will say, "Hey, we've just got this little misunderstanding here. I am sure we can clear it up really easily. Why don't you come down to the station, and we'll talk about this. We'll clear this up, and we'll get you on your way. We just want to get it off our books. We need to hear your side of the story, and we should be able to get rid of this," They will put on this show despite no intention of getting rid of the cause. Their goal is to get you in there to make some kind of statement, whether outright incriminating, or at least collaterally giving them some information that they can use to build a case against you.
The classic example would be, "Where were you last Friday night? We know you didn't commit this crime on Friday night, but just tell us where you were," and the person says to them, "Oh, I was out with my girlfriend at a movie," lying to them for whatever reason. They would say, "Okay, that's fine," and continue on with the conversation. What they do then is send out a detective or an investigator to go to speak to your girlfriend, and they ask her, "Hey, were you with this person last Friday night? Were you with your boyfriend last Friday night?" She says, "No, why? I was working, and I believe he was in Indiana or out of town." They say, "Oh, no big deal. We just wanted to find out what your side of the story was. We're trying to clear up this mess." Then, they charge you with the crime. When the case subsequently goes to trial, they say you lied about your whereabouts on the night of crime. That, collaterally, or not directly but circumstantially, would indicate some type of evidence of guilt. That would indicate to most jurors that this guy has got something to hide. He lied about where he was. He probably was there on the night of the crime.
So, it is always inadvisable to make any statement to the police, even if you are 100% innocent.
Interviewer: Can you give us an example?
Robert Callahan: One of the guys I worked with on death row got himself in trouble because he was just a loudmouth. The police were doing an investigation of an extremely heinous crime, and they talked to him and got all these details from him. He just kept talking about where he was and what he was doing. Then, they went through every detail he gave them about his whereabouts, and what he had been doing, and who he had spoken to with a fine-tooth comb. It’s kind of like game of telephone where you whisper something in someone's ear, and the next person whispers the same thing to the next person. By the time you get to the 10th person, the story has completely changed.
They went out and talked to all these people and showed these inconsistencies, and he was basically found guilty of this heinous sex crime murder because his stories did not match up. Fortunately, he was subsequently exonerated due to DNA evidence and further investigation, but he spent about 6 years on death row when we still had the death penalty.