Thank you. You could have simply answered the question without copping the attitude. And I don't care about the details (in fact, "property crime" would have been adequate for my purposes).
If you re-read your original post, you will note that you did not mention what you were accused of, even to the point of whether it was a violent crime, narcotics, domestic, or property.
I didn't ask you to believe me, or to sympathize with me, but you certainly have NO BASIS to assume the worst about me.
Re-read your original post and re-read my response. I said nothing about not believing you nor did I assume anything one way or the other. Bottom line is that you did not say what you were accused of. And I gave two very possible scenarios for an accusation (not making an assumption that any accusastion was true). The first two (guns or drugs) could have easily come from a neighbor giving them a "tip." The second two (abuse / kidnapping) could happen from a nosy neighbor, as well. In the case of the first two possibilities, there would not be a situation of imminent risk to life. Therefore, I agreed with you wholeheartedly. In the case of the second two (abuse / kidnapping), there would be a possibility of imminent risk. I don't know about in your area of the country, but where I come from officers are given considerably more latitude when they believe there is an imminent risk to life.
Bottom line is that you went into excruciating detail on how your rights were abused; had you inserted one single word about what you were accused of, it would have been one hell of a lot clearer exactly how significant the abuse of your rights were.
So calm down, take an Ativan, and lose the attitude. Some cops are jerks, but the vast majority are just folks trying to protect you while being able to go home at the end of their shift.
While I appreciate your follow-up post, your answer is similar to that of the Lt. I made my charge to.
Yes I could have simply answered the question. However, in my original post I made it pretty clear that I didn't want to give the details out for personal reasons (I obviously have a pretty rough enemy out there).
So while I could have simply spilled my guts and told you details I really wasn't interested in sharing, you too could have taken the hint and not asked me a question I wasn't interested in answering.
I "caught" an attitude because you immediately took the conversation to a place "assaulted/molested wife or children" to a place where I was pretty much FORCED to let you invade my privacy or to allow the horrible question to linger. (Did he hide the real ugly truth that he is an abuser or molester?) I reacted to your immediate race to the lowest common denominator. You could have just taking my post at face value, believed it or not believed it as I prompted, and NOT used an inflammatory suggestion to forcibly invade my privacy.
Does that make any sense?