by Patrick Hurley, and Robert Eme, PhD.
Chapter 4 - The Initial Law Enforcement Contact
Most people have their first and most frequent contact with the Police (Criminal Justice System) through a routine traffic stop. If you reflect back on your own situations this is probably the case.
Other ways are being the victim of a crime, being lost and needing directions. Some of us may have that first contact as being a witness or suspect of a criminal investigation. The majority of us I am sure however would probably say it was as a result of being stopped for a traffic violation.
Considering the nature and disabilities inherent with ADHD outlined earlier you can probably imagine that the initial contact with Police for a person with ADHD may be far different than the average person. Many ADHD people have a tendency to make even minor situations worse through poor decision making under duress. A traffic stop is a stressful situation for all concerned and by adding ADHD to the equation all sorts of problems can occur and be magnified.
Let's take a look at a "normal" traffic stop from the eyes of both the officer and the possible violator.
During a traffic stop a police officer (also a human being capable of errors and wrong assumptions) has to make many decisions quickly. The officer has little or no knowledge of the person being stopped or what kind of day they are having, what mood they might be in or problems on their minds. Once the officer observes a potential violation and elects to make a stop a series of events occurs that many average citizens are probably unaware of and as a result could be mistaken incorrectly. The citizen may observe the officer slow down and turn around to follow them. They may observe the officer leave a place where they had been parked and begin following them. Many citizens may realize they were driving too fast or doing something else wrong. (How many times have we stepped on the brakes when we saw a police car only to realize we actually were driving the speed limit)?
If the citizen has been involved in other law breaking behavior recently the range of emotions and guilt can magnify what the officer may actually be aware of to an exaggerated extent. Suppose the citizen possessed illegal drugs, was underage and had alcohol in the car or had broken into a house in the last few days. The degree on anxiety at the presence of the officer would certainly be heightened based on the degree of illegal activity the citizen had been involved in. If they had done nothing wrong in their opinion their anxiety at potentially being stopped might be very low. Perhaps a family emergency had occurred and family members had asked police to watch out for this person and their car to stop and notify them of the emergency.
At any rate depending on the person's life styles and past encounters with police you can see that each person would bring a different level of anxiety and preconceived notions to a potential traffic stop.
The potential traffic violator may ask themselves in rapid and sometimes jumbled order some of the following questions. Why am I being followed? If I am stopped, will I get a ticket? How many tickets have I already gotten in the past year? Is my driver's license suspended or revoked? Have I been drinking? Have I had too much to drink? Have I been using illegal drugs? Do I have illegal drugs with me now or alcohol and I am not of legal age? Have I committed another crime recently? Do I have an outstanding warrant for my arrest? We could go on but you get the picture and have probably asked some of these same questions yourself.
While you are asking yourself these questions time seems to have slowed down. The officer is making mental notes on your vehicle and is assessing the whole situation carefully as trained. They may be notifying dispatch that they are about to make a traffic stop. They have given them the description of your vehicle, license plate number and location of the possible stop. The dispatcher has begun entering this information into a computer with National links to determine if the vehicle is stolen or the registered owner is wanted for other crimes. The officer is probably following the car looking for a safe place to make the traffic stop out of the way of dangerous traffic patterns or dark secluded areas. It may be several miles and many minutes of waiting on the part of the potential violator. This adds to their anxiety levels.
During this time even a perfectly innocent person may have conjured up all sorts of past guilt's and created considerable stress on themselves.
Add to this mix a possible violator who also had ADHD. They may from my experience as a probation officer seeing past histories of probationers have a record of speeding, reckless driving, driving under suspension, driving under the influence of alcohol and or drugs. They may have tried to elude police in the past and may be thinking about trying it again now. They may have problems with authority in the past, parents, teachers, other police officers and the like. They may experience anger at themselves for once again messing up and now about to get yet another traffic ticket.
All this culminates when the officer turns on the top lights in his patrol car and perhaps activates the siren. The anxiety levels for both the potential violator and the officer have just compounded measurably. This is one of the most dangerous situations that officers routinely do. A heightened awareness of all activity occurring in the violator's vehicle is noted. The officer is getting ready to react quickly and with very little information to dealing with the occupants of this vehicle and must be prepared for a non eventful event or on the other hand a worse case scenario where everything goes sour.
All of this is affected by the mood of the officer and the violator. The sobriety level of the violator, the mental state of the violator and the attitude of all persons involved in the stop including officer, driver and passengers of the vehicle.
If the violator pulls over the officer is trained to approach the car cautiously and be observant of all occupants of the car as well as unseen potential occupants of the car not readily visible. If it is dark out the officer may have shined a bright spotlight into the rear view mirror of the violator's vehicle. This illuminates the interior of the violator's car and also makes it difficult for the violator to observe the one or two officers approaching their car.
This shining of the light into the mirror of the violator's car is often seen as an unnecessary and aggressive act to the violator. (I usually tell my friends that if stopped to turn the dome light of the car on and keep their hands on the top of the steering wheel and remain seated in the driver's seat through out the time the officer approaches and speaks to them.)
Often time's people think it is a good idea to exit their vehicle and head back toward the officer to find out what the problem is. Officers DO NOT like this and are trained that it could be an aggressive act. (It may not be but remember officer's can't read minds anymore than average citizens can and are trained to hope for the best but expect the worst). Officers may think a person has something to hide in their vehicle or are trying to distract the officer's attention while someone else in the violator's car is doing something else. Further elevation of anxiety on the part of the officer and the violator make quickly increase as the officer orders the person back into their car.
A violator with ADHD may have worked themselves into a high state of tension by the time the officer and they actually speak any words to each other. What comes out of their mouths depending on their self control levels may determine whether the anxiety levels on both the officer's part and the violator's parts increases again or stabilizes.
Let's say that the violator has ADHD for the sake of this discussion and impulsively blurts out in a rude tone of voice to the officer. Why did you stop me and what's up with the spotlight in my mirror? A well trained officer will immediately heighten his awareness of his surroundings and be more careful. This is human nature. What the ADHD person may not know is that he is being rude, or has succeeded in making a tense situation even worse. He has probably increased his chances of receiving a summons if one was being considered by a considerable percentage rate.
The officer normally is trained to try and calm the situation with speaking softly yet firmly in making his required requests for drivers license and car registration information. If the violator continues to act aggressively or even inappropriately defensive in the officer's opinion things can begin to turn sour quickly. If fears are calmed on both sides the situation may deescalate almost as quickly as it had escalated.
From my experience as a law enforcement officer the more agitated and defense the violator the more scrutiny and suspicion I would attribute to that person. Human nature and training would bear out that the potential to discover a more serious law breaking behavior is underway. This is not always true, but the increased scrutiny may result in the detection of illegal alcohol, drugs, weapons or other criminal activity that "perhaps" may have gone undetected.
It is my belief based on my law enforcement experience in the field and my duties as a probation officer and reviewing the past criminal and traffic records of persons with diagnosed ADHD that they seem to have more frequent contacts with law enforcement officers and a seemingly greater degree of negative outcomes to those contacts. In other words, more tickets, more arrests for traffic stop related criminal activity detection, more likely to have their driving privileges suspended, revoked or barred. More likely to have an ongoing relationship with the higher levels of the criminal justice system such as the courts, probation, prison and parole.
In a non traffic violation contact with law enforcement it is my experience that persons with ADHD make very poor criminals. I recall looking back on it that someone that I might now suspect as having ADHD usually was very easy to spot or pick out from a group of people in a car or group of suspects by both their verbal language and their body language. I think all police officers develop a sense for identifying what I would call the weak link in the group. ADHD persons suspected of criminal activity often create elaborate and not well thought through scenarios for what has occurred. They have trouble keeping their story straight. They have trouble keep secrets. They are not good a lying and their faces may flush or a guilty look comes over their face almost immediately. Any experienced law enforcement officer will know what is meant by these traits. This person above all the others unless there are two or more ADHD people involved is a valuable tool to the officer. As suspects in a case are normally separated to preclude collaboration of stories, the potential suspect with ADHD is probably the first one the officer will question. Normally his story is hopelessly filled with holes and contradictions that may not be present in the others stories. Questions asked may compound into even more multiples of further questions in an attempt to sort things out.
From my experience I think many of these people who did things to seemingly self sabotage themselves probably had ADHD. They are the ones who told all their friends and even some of their casual acquaintances of the extent of their involvement in criminal behavior, never thinking that those persons might tell others or alert authorities.
You probably have read of persons breaking into houses stealing items such as video cameras and then filming their criminal activity to show others. They often have the video tape in the car when officers stop them or it is such common knowledge because so many people have seen the video which the person considers a "trophy" of their criminal exploits. Almost any police officer could probably tell you one or more stories of persons who have done something to self sabotage themselves. I had more than one case where someone lost their wallet behind at the scene of the crime or drove down the road knocking down rural mailboxes and unknown to them ripped off the license plate of their vehicle which makes for a real challenge for officers to apprehend them.
Some of this type of spontaneous and impulsive behavior relates back to our earlier discussions on self esteem and gaining acceptance of others. Some ADHD persons may think by doing the outrageous that their peers will admire them or accept them. Some more dominant predator type criminals not necessarily smarter but more contemplative and better at thinking things out may use the ADHD person to do some of their dirty work for them. The ADHD person wants to please those whom they view as better criminals than them and are more than happy to comply.
Some of these more skilled criminals also recognize the potential risks of being too closely aligned with the ADHD type criminal and use layers of protection of others to utilize these people in criminal activity. This especially is evident in gang activity.
A classical gang "wanna be" in my opinion probably has a greater chance of having ADHD. The gang provides them with an acceptance (even though it may be a false acceptance) that they lack from their family and other friends. They are eager to show others that they will do anything that is required of them. They want to be able to tell their friends and acquaintances how valuable they are to the gang. They will usually enhance their stories and accomplishments to outsiders to seem even more dangerous and evil than they actually are. They are willing to accept this fear that their friends may have for them as a substitute for actual friendship as most of us know it based on trust and interest in another person for whom they are.
With the police these "wanna bes" often are viewed as more vocal and stand out among the gang as not quite fitting in to the stereotypical gang member. They are potentially good "snitches" for the police as their need for acceptance and importance is enhanced by either the gang members or the police who deal with them. In my experience the more their stature decreases in the gang the more likely they are to want to be informants for the police. They seek acceptance at all costs. Unfortunately for some of these people some officer's may "use" these people for information with little or no concern for what might happen to them later on. A professional officer who recognizes a person like this should also take necessary steps if possible to help protect this person from the dangers of providing information to law enforcement. Many of these individuals are actually likeable, caring individuals who the officer grows to like.
Most experienced police officers know of people like this. I would say that
the role that Joe Pesci played in the "Lethal Weapon" with Mel Gibson
and Danny Glover would be a good example of this type of person. Joe Pesci
displays classical ADHD symptoms in those movies, of wanting to be accepted
and being picked on, made fun of and also showing a genuine need to be friends with
the police and having a soft sentimental side that he doesn't like sharing.
Recall the scene when Mel Gibson is at the cemetery visiting his dead wife's grave
and talking to her about falling in love with Renee Russo's character. Pesci arrives to relay a simple story of a pet frog named "Froggie" to Mel that sounds crazy, but subtly gives Mel the answer he has been seeking from his long since deceased wife. Mel even says something like "Honey, that was a strange messenger, but I got the message."
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Spinning Out of Control