Your Rights During Police Interactions

Last updated: October 11, 2017 01:45 pm

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Knowing your rights is vital, especially during police interactions. You cannot assume that officers will behave in a way that protects your safety or that they will respect your rights even after you assert them.

That’s why the ACLU of Maryland developed our free Know Your Rights program so that you can know how to exercise your rights and what to do when your rights are violated.

Download your copy

VIDEOS

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Flex Dancers and ACLU Present: Know Your Rights in Police Encounters

The ACLU teamed up with THE D.R.E.A.M. RING, a company of Brooklyn dancers, to create a ‘Know Your Rights’ video for stop and frisk encounters. Knowing and exercising your rights is not about confronting or physically resisting police officers. It is about surviving.The ACLU teamed up with THE D.R.E.A.M. RING, a company of Brooklyn dancers, to create a ‘Know Your Rights’ video for stop and frisk encounters. Knowing and exercising your rights is not about confronting or physically resisting police officers. It is about surviving.

This embed will serve content from {{ domain }}. See our privacy statement

Knowing your rights is vital, especially during police interactions. You cannot assume that officers will behave in a way that protects your safety or that they will respect your rights even after you assert them.

That’s why the ACLU of Maryland developed our free Know Your Rights program so that you can know how to exercise your rights and what to do when your rights are violated.

Download your copy

VIDEOS

This embed will serve content from {{ domain }}. See our privacy statement

Flex Dancers and ACLU Present: Know Your Rights in Police Encounters

The ACLU teamed up with THE D.R.E.A.M. RING, a company of Brooklyn dancers, to create a ‘Know Your Rights’ video for stop and frisk encounters. Knowing and exercising your rights is not about confronting or physically resisting police officers. It is about surviving.The ACLU teamed up with THE D.R.E.A.M. RING, a company of Brooklyn dancers, to create a ‘Know Your Rights’ video for stop and frisk encounters. Knowing and exercising your rights is not about confronting or physically resisting police officers. It is about surviving.

Know Your Rights: What to Do in Police Encounters

Podcast

In this episode of Thinking Freely, we talked to two experienced Know Your Rights Trainers, Kimi Washington and Gus Griffin, along with Amy Cruice the director of ACLU of Maryland’s Know Your Rights Program, about why knowing your rights are so important, and how you can request a training.

NOTE: This podcast is currently only available in English.

Listen to the podcast
Thinking Freely ACLU of Maryland Podcast

Know Your Rights – Protesting

Know Your Rights

You have the right to peacefully protest and express your opinion, even if it is controversial.

Learn about your protesting rights
Black person with fist in the air wearing a t-shirt with the names of Black people killed by police

Police Accountability Self-Advocacy

Toolkit

From 2015 to 2022, 123 people in Maryland were killed by the police. This number is too great and doesn’t even count the people, families, and whole communities who survive so much physical and mental harm from needless – often racist – run-ins with police. This institutional failure is made worse by flawed “accountability” structures designed to protect police and bypass justice.

The ACLU of Maryland Police Accountability Self-Advocacy toolkit describes ways a person may use existing, though inadequate, accountability structures. We also hope this self-kit will highlight the flaws of the system and encourage you to change it.

NOTE: This resource is currently only available in English.

Get the toolkit
A person's hands are holding a large protest sign that says, "No Voice Unheard." The background is blurred out but you can see that there are people at a protest. Courtesy credit: Molly Kaplan, ACLU.

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