I get that the rule-of-thumb for talking to cops is that you should have a lawyer present. But like, what if it's small shit? Hypothetically, what if I witness a hit and run and the cop is asking me what I saw? Should I really insist that I have a lawyer present?
Sorry if this question sounds really dumb, but I've always been playing this situation out in my mind. My feeling has always just to say what I saw, like tell the cop "it was a grey Mazda SUV". Should I tell the cop that I'll make a statement in the station with my lawyer present?
Also what if there's currently a crime in progress, like a shooting or something? I guess that's unlikely, and that cops are useless.
Sometimes you have to. My partner was in a car accident that was absolutely not their doing. The car could not be driven off the scene. They had to talk to the cops about it but kept it to "I don't really know what happened, I'm okay, here are my insurance details" etc. So like...yes you should talk to cops when you need to for capitalism reasons (like so we could file the accident with our insurance to get it fixed) but otherwise no. I've had cops ask me on the street if I saw stuff and I literally just tell them I won't talk to them. They hate that shit but fuck em. Talking to them in that scenario helps nobody and isn't strictly required by capital so I won't do it.