I’ve recently seen a clip where a guy cussed at a cop and showed him a middle finger. Then the cop wasn’t able to detain him because the guy was just expressing his freedom of speech and his opinion. is this for real? I’m from Poland and it’s unthinkable here to even cuss in the presence of the law and gestures like this will surely get you fined or in jail.
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We have free speech here. Expressing your opinion to government is highly protected.
Words and gestures are just that. As long as you aren’t breaking a law they can’t do anything.
Yup.
Our rights are damn near absolute. The only exception is really when we fringe on the rights of others.
On paper, you can’t get in trouble for insulting a police officer. In reality, they’ll probably treat you much worse if you’re rude to them. But they can’t charge you with “insulting a police officer.” It’s not a crime.
Correct, as most case law will attest. However, that doesn’t stop police from arresting you anyway. Some reading below:
https://www.marcushillattorney.com/links/flipping-off-the-cops.shtml
Be careful getting pedantic around cops.
It is not illegal to flip off a police officer.
It’s not illegal on it’s own, but if you do that the cop might very well make up a reason to arrest you. Tons of people get arrested on make-believe charges as a result of being impolite to officers.
These charges are usually dropped, but you still end up spending several hours in the jail getting processed.
A cop could probably give you a hard time or attempt to sling their dick around with empty threats but legally no, they can’t do anything.
yep. the first amendment protects our freedom of speech. it’s one of the most radical & unique parts of American life, in my opinion.
[burning the American flag](https://www.uscourts.gov/educational-resources/educational-activities/facts-and-case-summary-texas-v-johnson) is also legally protected speech as a form of “symbolic speech.” an excerpt:
>The majority noted that freedom of speech protects actions that society may find very offensive, but society’s outrage alone is not justification for suppressing free speech.
I mean it’s legal to insult a cop but it’s not recommended, mouthing off at police is a great way to get your ass beat or arrested for some bullshit.
I mean…. cops here like to shoot people for just about any reason… so while not technically illegal… do ya feel lucky, punk?
I wouldn’t mess around doing stuff like that unless I was a lawyer or had the time to be very very familiar with the law. It is legal, but most likely the police are going to find a reason to make an issue with you.
There’s no law against it, but it’s highly inadvisable and outs you as a trash individual.
Only anti-authoritarian teenage/20-something edgelords fantasize about doing such things.
You can say whatever you want including gestures such as that. Just as long as your movement and tone of voice couldn’t be called “threatening “ then you may get pepper sprayed and arrested.
In theory, yes. In practice our cops generally do not know or care about your rights, and should be avoided at all costs. If you’re in a situation where talking to a police officer is a possibility, you need to leave immediately – politely but firmly as they say.
They aren’t there to protect you.
My brother-in-law was a cop. Whenever a driver would stick their arm out the driver’s side window and flip him off, he would pull them over and give them a ticket for an illegal turn signal.
In the US (and presumably other places), if your turn signals do not work you can give hand signals to indicate your intention. Sticking your left arm straight out the window indicates a left turn, while sticking your left arm out with the forearm bent up at a 90° angle indicates a right turn. In this case, flipping the bird could be “interpreted” as a right turn signal.
That’s the theory.
Our police force selects for violent bullies with low intelligence and low impulse control. They ain’t exactly constitutional scholars.
There may be a difference between what the law says and what actually happens. I would recommend [this audit the audit video](https://youtu.be/ttfKum235Rg) as it shows the kinds of things that happen in reality, but brings up relevant case law.
theoretically, yes it is. That is free speech.
However, a cop who wants to has about a million ways to fuck up your day (for example, arresting you for disorderly conduct even though they know the charge will never stick — you still get tossed in jail for a night and have to get a lawyer and all of that bullshit). That guy sort of got lucky that he did that to a cop that respected the law and his rights, because many wouldn’t.
When I was 18 I flipped off a cop for tailgating.
We got pulled over. They didn’t mention the one-finger salute but they did search the car for drugs. Which they didn’t find.
All they found was some rolls of nickles. They tried acting like our nickles were suspicious. Even after we’d told them we were on our way to a casino. (I’m old…..you could play with actual change back then!)
It is not a crime, but that won’t stop a cop from finding a reason to make your life difficult afterwards.
In theory, yes.
In practice if the cop’s a jerk or a non-jerk having a bad day, you might get arrested anyway for disorderly conduct, jaywalking, public intoxication, obstruction, or some other catch-all charge that police can use when you’re being a jerk but not otherwise doing something specifically illegal.
Yes you can and the guy who operates this channel is a lawyer. Probably the video you are referring to.
https://youtu.be/ttfKum235Rg
In most jurisdictions, disturbing the peace requires a victim that was disturbed. Usually, police officers are exempted from this, and cannot declare themselves the victim. So yes, essentially you can say whatever you want to police officer, and it is not directly chargeable.
We were always told in training and inservice that “police officers aren’t allowed to be offended”.
However, if you flip a police officer the bird and a passing citizen is offended, some municipalities have local laws that allow that to be chargeable on behalf of the third-party offended victim.
We were often told in rollcall not to hunt for possible offended victims—they have to come up to us of their own volition if they are offended, and we couldn’t poll the nearby crowd to see if anybody was upset by what was said to a police officer.
Frankly, if you’ve done an awful lot of patrol work, the part of your brain that gets upset about what people say burns out around year three or four. Any seasoned officer who has had the experience of patrol, and is a reasonable person, wouldn’t react to that kind of verbal nonsense anyway.
Source: I’m a retired police lieutenant from a major US city with 11 years of graveyard shift patrol experience.
You can do that legally, but doing so will likely cause the police officer to have a negative disposition toward you.
For example, getting pulled over.
Cooperating and being friendly vs cussing at the cop could be the difference between a warning and a ticket.
I mean yeah you can cuss out a police officer, curse their entire family, and if you didn’t do anything wrong they *shouldn’t* arrest you. Some cops do because many of them have extremely fragile egos.
Legally, fuck no, they can’t do shit, its protected under freedom of speech. In practice though, some of them will just straight up fucking break the law just to feel big and screw you over. Though in the end the victim would be the real winner after the civil suit that’ll follow lol
yes it is technically fully legal to flip off a cop, however cops can do whatever they want and it’s not at all hard for them to find an excuse to put you in handcuffs and drive you to the police station anyway.
Just because you can do something doesn’t mean it is a good idea
Did it all the time to the MPLS PD during George Floyd.
You can but I honestly wouldn’t advise it. They might not be able to do anything about it directly and some might not even want too, but some of them will use that as an excuse to make your day a little bit worse.
In general, it is protected speech. However, freedom of speech is not universal and there are some limiting principles. In particular here, “Fighting words” and direct face-to-face insults are not protected by the first amendment and you could possibly get in trouble for the finger if the justice system deems your conduct to fall under one of these categories. Also, there is the broader crime of “disorderly conduct”, basically trying to cause trouble or disturbing the peace in pubic areas, that you could also be committing.
As with all things. It depends.
In theory, on paper, if all you did was walk up to a cop and flip them off, no they can’t arrest you for that. Telling someone to fuck off isn’t a crime.
Now if you flipped them off while screaming “fuck you” in their face and are getting aggressive, there’s a fine line there where they could try to say you were threatening them.
And of course there’s always a few cops who will abuse their authority and use any excuse you give them to hassle you.
But in general, just saying “fuck you” to a cop is not a crime.
Probably technically true, but absolutely a terrible idea. This will almost certainly antagonize the cop, and if they have any legal excuse to arrest you (and they have a good bit of discretion in many cases), they will.
I am careful to always be polite to the police, even if they pull me over for some bogus reason (one claimed an improper lane change.) They’re either going to give you a ticket or not, and if you’re hostile, count on at least a summons and perhaps an arrest.
Yes, but they’ll find a way to arrest you anyways.
Yes, you’re free to do that. If you choose to do it, you’d better be sure you’re not violating any law or ordinance, because you could easily find yourself arrested for something like jaywalking or blocking a sidewalk, where the cop would ordinarily just ignore it. And if he’s already dealing with someone else, you could easily be arrested for obstruction or interfering with a peace officer.
Technically? Yes. Practically? No. It’s an easy way to end up bloody and charged with “resisting arrest.” Will the charge stick and result in a conviction in court? Probably not. Will you end up with a stack of medical and legal bills you wouldn’t have had otherwise? Absolutely.
It’s legal.
However, cops are best treated like any other very large, dumb, aggressive, dangerous, easily angered animal. Avoidance is the best policy.
I’m going to use this as an example next time a European on Reddit says “why would you ever need freedom of speech?”
Yes. Doesn’t mean they won’t find a BS reason to pull you over and write you a ticket (not for the middle finger as there’s not even a law I can think of that you’re even breaking) but like speeding if you were only going 1 MPH over.
They might not arrest you for the ‘finger’ but cops can be creative in finding other arrestable offenses. Depends mostly on individual cop and the circumstances.
Yes, it’s true on paper but in real life it would depend on the cop and the person flipping them off.
I’m a petite white woman with blond hair and have found in life that when I do bad things cops think it’s adorable and I face no real consequences. When I was younger I did some heavy drugs which led to some stupid illegal acts and when caught the cops acted like it was nothing-they told jokes and checked if I was ok and gave me a ride home, and then cracked jokes with my dad when he answered the door. They’d end things with a big handshake for my dad and then a wink to me and tell me to try and stay out of trouble this time
If I had been a young black male the outcome would have been different. Justice isn’t blind in our country