[Respond Code Three]

Here's a hypothetical for all of you:

You have a young family member who is suddenly missing. You call the police and an officer comes out. After you give the officer the information he requests assistance from the detectives. A detective arrives and listens to the information. As it turns out the detective recently had contact with a guy who lives in the area who is on parole for child molestation. He locates the guy and of course the guy nervous.

On a hunch the detective tells the guy that he was taped on a remote video taking the child. He tells him that the life of the child is important and he should tell where the child is. The guy hesitates, and then tells the detective the child is in a house a few blocks away. He leads the detective to the house and the child is found. The child is alive and basically ok but still needs medical treatment.

Do you - thank the detective, even though he LIED to the suspect?

Do you - curse the BEJESUS out of the detective because he lied to the suspect?

[Carry_Okie]

Classic means and ends argument. My answer to you is twofold:

First, it is a false premise to presume the lie was the ONLY means the officer had at his disposal, which is not true.

Second, I'm going to paraphrase Aristotle from the Nichomachean Ethics: 'No one selects an end unless it is a means to something else. There are no ends; there are only means.'

It is our means that distinguish us. While it is ethical to lie to save a life, it is not if there is an alternative.

[yldstrk]

the lie here didn’t necessarily lead to the child

the bad guy was nervous

the life of the child is important

how does it make a difference that he was seen on video or not

the problem with the lying comes in when the police become so twisted by the lying that they can’t tell the difference between fact and fiction

the police are supposed to investigate, using hard work and intelligence and instinct to solve crimes

what they have come to is tricking people into false confessions that help no one but makes their stats look good

even the prosecutors don’t seem to give a hoot about the facts, just the domination of the “perp”

the system has lost its way with its manipulation and lack of integrity

[ChildOfThe60s]

There are always gray areas.

My point is from the perspective of the one being questioned. You as the questioned should not talk to the police. Their goal is not to get “the truth”. It is to arrest someone. Everything and anything you say to them, they intend to use against you, because you are always assumed guilty by the police.

Finding the 1% of exceptions to that doesn’t change my opinion.