By Mark David Blum, Esq.

I want to pose an hypothetical question. In this format perhaps you can catch a momentary glimpse into the world of which I often speak. The facts are true. Identities are masked for obvious reasons. Frankly, I could not even pose this issue had I not been an eyewitness. When you ponder the solution, what would be your response and where do you draw the line.

Fasten your seatbelts. The following happened right here in Syracuse, New York … hypothetically.

One day, someone breaks into a car containing payroll checks for some company. The knucklehead then goes ahead and cashes some of the checks. Police catch a suspect they allege is the villain.

What police need, as a crucial piece of evidence, is a statement from a victim. One of the folks (all of them actually) whose paycheck was stolen and cashed was a victim of the crime. Cops need to fan out and catch up with victims to arrange their signatures on a complaint.

Here is where the situation turns hypothetical.

You are the victim of a payroll theft. Some idiot stole your paycheck and managed to cash it. Police catch the S.O.B. and need your signature on a criminal complaint. Obviously you have no legal obligation to sign a complaint or cooperate with the prosecution unless you are subpoena’d to testify. In my world, you have a moral obligation because we don’t want people out there who steal other people’s stuff; whatever the reason.

What do you expect from your police department? Ask yourself whether the following actions are legitimate and acceptable to you as a means for the police to contact you. They show up at your work asking for you. Police come to your house; twice but you are not there. Let us assume they do not have your phone number and make no effort to find you by telephone.

Detectives start canvassing your friends searching for you. They show up at 7:30 at night at a friend’s house and walk right into the house, without invitation or warrant. Just opening the door, police walk into your friend’s living room while he and his family are laying around watching a movie.

Your friend, now clearly incensed at the police, calls his lawyer. His lawyer calls police and seeks an explanation for the manner of entry. When he gets the run around, he asks for the shift commander but that message is never returned. One of the officers returns a call and flatly denies entering the house without permission and then hung up the phone mid-sentence.

How are you feeling now? More hypothetically …

Your friend then calls you and unloads on you and demands you fix this. Giving you the detective’s phone number, you call, give them your address and telephone number. They come over and you sign the statement. Obviously the officers say it was an accident they walked into your friend’s house.

The next day, your friend, his family, and by serendipity his lawyer are having a discussion about business on your friend’s front porch. Two detectives show up again.

“Hello folks, what’s going on here?”

The lawyer responds by introducing himself and the homeowner/client. Detectives say they are looking for you because they want you sign a statement. Your friend is sitting there watching a rerun of the night before. Thankfully your friend’s lawyer was there on the spot and kept the detectives from setting foot inside the house or interrogating anybody about any issue. Theirs was an immediate change in attitude when the lawyer introduced himself.

After once again the client and his family said they have no idea where you are and the detectives start to leave, your friend’s lawyer tells the cops that the next time they are looking for you, that your friend is the last person on their list to be contacted.

Walking away, one of the detectives takes the bait and starts to argue with the lawyer. The lawyer raises his voice to make sure everybody in the neighborhood can hear and demands that police stop harassing the client. Walking into his home the night before, coming to his house a second time for a statement they already had signed, and starting the conversation with “what is going on here?”

The cop’s brilliant retort was, “define harassment … there is no harassment. Can you define harassment.?” There is no harassment here, the detective tries to argue.

“Harassment as in harassment second or civil?”

“Second”, the detective responds.

“No physical contact”, says the lawyer.

Continuing with his tangential and irrelevant argument, the detective snidely retorts, “so how can you call it harassment? You are so ignorant.”

He slams his car door shut and drives off.

I will let you decide whether the this is a true story. Only the parties involved and the Syracuse Police CID know the truth.

My thoughts are that a crime victim had to suffer the embarrassment of police being jerks to the victim’s friends when the alleged mission was to get the victim’s signature on the statement. I cant think of anything less professional.

This hypothetical situation explains perhaps one reason why the waters are so poisoned and the public relations with police are so bad.

Hypothetically speaking.