Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 857, Being Arrested by the Police.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 857.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Home of ESL Podcast.
This episode, like all of our episodes, has a learning guide.
You can get one by going to our website at eslpod.com.
This episode is a story about someone, well, getting into trouble and being taken by the police.
Let's get started.
I was walking down the street minding my own business one evening when I was stopped by a police officer.
After asking me a couple of questions about where I'd been, he told me to put my hands behind my back.
He was going to arrest me.
He handcuffed me and gave me the Miranda warning.
When I asked him why he was arresting me, he said that he had probable cause to believe that I was the suspect they had been looking for in a robbery that took place on the next street.
I couldn't believe it.
I was completely innocent, but the officer didn't want to hear it.
He put me in the back of a police car and drove me to the police station.
I was placed in a jail cell and, after a few hours, I was taken to a room where and interrogated.
A police officer asked me question after question, and after four hours of questioning I was finally released.
I found out later that it was a case of mistaken identity.
I looked very much like the suspect they were looking for and I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I could sue the police department for false arrest, but I decided not to.
I'd rather put the entire thing behind me and hope that I'm never that unlucky again.
Our story begins by me telling about how I was walking down the street, minding my own business.
The expression to mind M-I-N-D.
Your own business means that you're paying attention to your own affairs, your own concerns, and you're not becoming involved in Within the other situation.
You're not interacting or talking to other people.
You're not trying to cause problems.
We often use this expression when someone perhaps, is getting involved in something they shouldn't be.
We might say, mind your own business.
Someone asks you questions about your ex-girlfriend and wants to know why the two of you stopped dating.
You might say, mind your own business.
Well, that's what I was trying to do.
I was trying not to get involved in anything as I was walking down the street.
However, I was stopped by a police officer.
A police officer is a person whose job it is to protect and defend people and the things people own what we call property and make sure everyone is obeying the law.
A more informal term for a police officer is a cop, C-O-P.
After asking me a couple of questions about where I'd been, I say...
He, the police officer, told me to put my hands behind my back.
Put my hands or put my arms behind my back.
The reason was that the officer was going to arrest me.
To arrest A-R-R-E-S-T means for a police officer to take someone back to a police station and keep them there, often for a very long time, if they think the person has committed a crime, has done something against the law.
The officer handcuffed me.
To handcuff H-A-N-D-C-U-F-F is to put these two circles of metal around your wrists that are connected so that you can't move your arms very easily.
The noun is handcuffs.
And the verb is to handcuff.
To handcuff is to put handcuffs on someone's wrists, on their arms.
The Miranda warning is something that is only done here in the United States.
At least it's only called the Miranda warning here.
The Miranda warning is a statement that police officers have to make to people when they're being arrested, telling them that they have certain legal rights.
They don't have to talk to the police.
You have a right to remain silent, we say.
You don't have to say anything if you're being arrested.
At least that's the law.
That doesn't always happen, of course.
The Miranda warning is called the Miranda warning, based on an old Supreme Court ruling, a decision made by our highest court many years ago, back in the 1960s I believe.
I continue the story by saying when I asked him why he was arresting me, He said that he had probable cause to believe that I was the suspect they had been looking for.
Probable P-R-O-B-A-B-L-E is related to the word probably, and it means that it seems likely that something will happen, or it seems likely that something is true.
Cause, C-A-U-S-E, is the reason for something, why something happened.
So probable cause means we have a good reason, something that is likely to be true, to believe that you are involved in this crime.
At least, that's how the phrase is used here in this story.
We talk about police having probable cause.
We mean they have a good enough reason to arrest someone.
Well, the officer thought he had probable cause, that I was the suspect.
A suspect, S-U-S-P-E-C-T, is a person who you think has done something wrong.
You're not sure.
It hasn't been proven.
But you have good reason to think this person committed the crime, did something against the law.
In this case, the crime was a robbery.
A robbery is when you steal or take something, especially money or some other object, without someone's permission.
That would be robbery.
I then say, I couldn't believe it.
I was completely innocent.
To be innocent.
I n n o c e n?
T is the opposite of guilty.
When you have not done anything wrong, i say that i was completely innocent, but the officer the police officer didn't want to hear it.
He didn't want to listen to me.
He put me in the back of a police car and drove to the police station.
The police station is the building where the police officers work.
Big cities like Los Angeles have several police stations located in different parts of the city.
I was placed in a jail cell.
A jail J-A-I-L cell C-E-L-L is a small room in a jail or a prison where one or two, maybe a few more prisoners are kept, where they are put so that they don't leave.
After a few hours, I was taken to a room and interrogated.
The verb to interrogate I-N-T-E-R-R-O-G-A-T-E means to ask a lot of questions, often in a very what we might call aggressive way, maybe even an angry way.
The verb is used whenever the police are asking questions, not because they always ask in an aggressive, angry way, but because they want to find out what the truth is.
So the verb doesn't necessarily have to be a negative one in the sense that you're angry when you're asking the question.
But it's only used typically when we're talking about the police or maybe a member of the military interrogating a prisoner, something like that.
A police officer asked me, question after question, I say, and after four hours of questioning I was finally released.
To release R-E-L-E-A-S-E means to let someone go from the place where you were holding that person.
Normally, we talk about being released from prison.
But a student might also be released from school, just kind of like a prison, I guess, sometimes.
I found out later that it was a case of mistaken identity.
Mistaken comes from the word mistake, which means an error, something that went wrong.
Identity refers to who a person is.
So mistaken identity would be being wrong about who you think a person is.
Someone came up to me and thought I was Brad Pitt and wanted my autograph.
I said, well, okay.
It really was a case of mistaken identity.
I looked very much like the suspect they were looking for.
I continue and I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
That's an old expression, to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
It means you were somewhere where you were innocent.
You weren't doing anything wrong, but just by luck you were in a bad situation or you were at a place at the wrong time, at a time when something bad happened.
I could sue the police for false arrest, but I decided not to.
To sue means to go to a judge, go to a court and ask for money.
It's possible, if a police officer arrests you and did something wrong in that process, you could sue the police department for false arrest.
False arrest is a situation where you are taken by the police for but they didn't do it properly.
They should not have arrested you.
False, of course, is in this case sort of wrong or mistaken.
I'd rather put the entire thing behind me, I say.
To put something behind you means to forget about it, to act as though it never happened.
That's usually a good idea for bad relationships.
Just put them behind you.
Forget about them.
Move on, we would say.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
I was walking down the street minding my own business one evening when I was stopped by a police officer.
After asking me a couple of questions about where I'd been, he told me to put my hands behind my back.
He was going to arrest me.
He handcuffed me and gave me the Miranda warning.
When I asked him why he was arresting me, he said that he had probable cause to believe that I was the suspect they had been looking for in a robbery that took place on the next street.
I couldn't believe it.
I was completely innocent, but the officer didn't want to hear it.
He put me in the back of the police car and drove me to the police station.
I was placed in a jail cell, and after a few hours, I was taken to a room and interrogated.
A police officer asked me question after question, and after four hours of questioning I was finally released.
I found out later that it was a case of mistaken identity.
I looked very much like the suspect they were looking for and I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I could sue the police department for false arrest, but I decided not to.
I'd rather put the entire thing behind me and hope that I'm never that unlucky again.
There's no mistaking the identity of our scriptwriter.
It's the one, the only, Dr. Lucy Say.
Thank you, Lucy.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2012 by the Center for Educational Development.
