"The Police Are Not Your Friends," Thomas B. Fitzgerald Warns in New Book

Shreveport, LA, January 26, 2022 --(PR.com)-- As Brennan Center for Justice reports at brennancenter.org, by age 23, nearly a third of all Americans will have been arrested at least once. That fact alone is enough for every American to seriously consider the options available to them when confronted with police action.

In his new book, "The Police Are Not Your Friends," Thomas B. Fitzgerald walks readers through the letter of the law and the cold reality of police power while offering crucial advice on how to negotiate police encounters safely and in a way that best positions them for whatever legal action might follow.

Fitzgerald writes from experience. A successful software engineer by trade, he once spent months fighting an arrest stemming from an officer’s insistence that he had made an improper lane change. His victory in that case, and his happier interactions with police, inspired Fitzgerald to study the relationship between civilians and police in a clear, practical light.

“It’s important to remember that any police officer has a very specific agenda,” he reflects, “and it doesn’t include deciding right away who’s right and who’s wrong. That’s for the courts to decide. Police are there to assess and neutralize threats, not to choose sides. That’s why I called my book 'The Police Are Not Your Friends,' out of respect for the priorities of everyone involved in a police encounter.”

Police are also human, notes Fitzgerald. “The officer who pulled me over for a lane change violation was after something more. I’m not much of a drinker, and I hadn’t had a drop of alcohol that evening, but I was immediately challenged with a breathalyzer. It turns out that the same cop set a departmental record that day for DUI arrests.

“The police sometimes get it wrong, and they sometimes work toward goals beyond just protecting and serving the community. That makes it all the more important to know your rights and specifically how to exercise them in the heat of the moment when confronted by aggressive police actions.”

Even the wisest and fairest-minded police can find themselves making decisions based on faulty information. Fitzgerald knows all about that angle, too. As an active member of Women Against False Accusations, he seeks to reduce the incidence of false accusations, allowing police to work more effectively—and more importantly, allowing valid criminal complaints to be filed more safely, heard more completely, and trusted more implicitly. WAFA is a subset of the National Coalition for Men, a group of men and women committed to ending harmful discrimination and stereotypes against boys, men, their families, and the women who love them.

"The Police Are Not Your Friends" is available in paperback and Kindle format through Amazon. To learn more about the book, or about his other work toward helping us all negotiate police encounters more fruitfully, please contact the author.