What You Can Do After an Abusive Interaction with the Police

Police abuse is never an easy topic to deal with. Being on the receiving end of police brutality can leave you with a lasting impact on your mentality, and it’s something that many people struggle with for years. It’s important to understand that you have a wide range of resources that you can use nowadays, and depending on where you live, it might be perfectly possible to bring the officers responsible to justice. However, you should prepare for a difficult battle regardless.

Don’t Give Up Hope Right Away

It’s common among people who’ve suffered at the hands of the police to have reservations about reporting their situation in the first place. There’s a general misconception that nothing is ever done about those cases, despite overwhelming evidence of the opposite in recent years. Losing hope is the worst thing you could do in this situation. Remember, even if you have given up on the idea of finding justice for your own case, you have a responsibility to prevent this from happening to others. And that starts by speaking up and trying to take matters into your own hands.

Use All Available Resources

Make sure to document the incident to the best of your abilities. Note down the smallest details, even ones that you don’t think will be relevant. Talk to people, see if anyone would be willing to testify in your favor. Needless to say, you should also get the best professional legal assistance you can find. A good attorney for police brutality like RB Law can make all the difference in the outcome of your case. You must be honest with them though. People in these situations might sometimes conceal certain facts about their case, believing that they are just going to jeopardize their chances. But your attorney will need to hear the full story in order to fight your case successfully.

Be Prepared to Escalate

Remember that things might escalate very fast after you’ve initiated the process. Depending on the severity of the case, you might find it receiving a lot of attention from officials, including high-ranking ones. You must be ready to answer any questions that come up, but at the same time discuss every step with your lawyer. Do not talk to anyone without their supervision, and make sure that they are aware of any attempts to initiate contact with you outside of the official channels. This may happen, unfortunately.

This will take a while, and you will face lots of difficulties along the way. This is normal in every case involving police brutality, even ones that sound simple on paper. As long as you’ve got your facts straight and you’ve taken the time to find a good attorney who can represent you adequately, you still have a good chance of winning this though. Even if you don’t, you at least won’t have to live with the knowledge that you had a chance to make a difference and didn’t do anything about it.