I understand the system tends to have a racial bias, but being nice to cops will almost always help things go your way, regardless of your race or social status. I think cops expect people to be dicks to them because that's the treatment they're used to (specially in low-income areas). Being courteous and not giving them an attitude is a nice surprise and will make them want to treat you well. I work in customer service. Who do you think I'll go out of my way to help-- the person yelling in my face telling me I'm a fucking cunt, or the nice person who explains the situation calmly and doesn't disrespect me?

I'm brown and nowhere near middle class. My friend and I had been smoking pot in a really nice grassy area that was pretty secluded. We finished up, and decided to drive to a taco shop. Now, my friend didn't have his driver's license but he did have a learning permit. This means he just needed someone over 18 with a driver's license to be in the passengers seat, so we were fine.

Unfortunately he wasn't a very experienced driver, so he still got kind of nervous. He wasn't able to make the turn into the taco shop. His turn was too wide and the entrance was pretty sharp. So he straightens out, trying to go straight instead, but hit the gas instead of the break, and ended up hitting a parked car. The owner was standing right in front of it... Talking to a cop. Fuck.

There was no damage to the car, the owner didn't want to report the accident (the cop gave him the option), and both of our records were clean. So he was about to let us go... And then he said, yeah, just one last question... Who has the weed? We think, fuck we were almost good. The cop was actually an absolute dick. He yelled at us, threatened to tow the car, told me I was super irresponsible for being under the influence while I was supposed to teach him how to drive (he had a point, honestly). I told him I have no weed, I had smoked earlier in the day and it had been hours, and the driver had not smoked at all (lies). He was a dick throughout, like I said, and kept threatening and yelling at us but we never so much as got searched. We kept our cool, were really nice to him (even when he wasn't), and we got away. Didn't get searched, didn't get our weed taken away, didn't get towed, no tickets-- he told us to go home and not do it again.