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Courts need to start doing something about these dirty cops. He had every right to flip that cop off that goes to show he’s dirty because he was going to ticket him for that it’s not against the law. Are these people trained in law at all ? 😱

It’s like they’re thinking “if the public hates us, well we’ll just go give ’em another reason to hate us then”

I expect a ARMED police officer to be “cool” and “adult” enough to ignore gestures like that.

Freedom of speech is so paramount to the foundation of this nation that our founders wrote it down first. I may not agree with how some choose to express that right, but I support their right to express it!

Police in New York are on notice that flipping the middle finger (“one-finger salute”) at a cop is protected speech and a constitutional right that’s “clearly established” … meaning they get no “qualified immunity” for pulling a car over in response to getting the bird — aka digitus impudicus — from the motorist. See Swartz v. Insogna 704 F. 3d 105 – Court of Appeals, 2nd Circuit, 2013.

The cop needs a reason to get his ID, but the he doesn’t need to articulate that reason to the driver. And I believe that’s a problem. I think police should be required to verbalize the actual statute (section/paragraph/text) that was allegedly broken before he compels identification.

It’s sad how law enforcement has become, even the retired cops frown on these new ones, no integrity, retaliation against the public,

So the officer chose to pull him over illegally and unlawfully detain him for something that was not a crime. Is it being a dick? Yes. But not a crime. Unfortunately if your ego is so easily hurt that you have to violate somebody’s right and break the law yourself to make sure they knew that your ego is hurt, maybe you should not be wearing that badge!

Why do ALL these sovereign citizens dress the same way? “You flipped me off and that’s not normal.” He’s right. We need to normalize it.

There is reasonable suspicion, and then then there is only one other kind in this context. It is quite unlawful to detain anybody for anything less than a reasonable suspicion of a violation of the law. There are circumstances where I’d get verbally offensive with a cop but the only good way to be is to try to not aggravate public servants, cops included. This cop was wrong to detain finger man but he at least didn’t escalate into a deeper abuse of authority. Imagine the police facing a population that knew how to calmly and succinctly stand for their rights at every encounter, and too smartly file complaints at every abuse of authority.

As always, Thank You for a very informative. Serious question, Do you think that the majority of the officers that act this way are in hopes of you not knowing your rights or are they so dumb that they have no idea that we even have rights. I know an officer that made this statement, “ a sovereign citizen has no rights. You can literally treat them anyway that you want to “ this comment was made sitting around a card table with plenty alcohol and some special ingredient peanut butter cookies. All in which this officer was partaking , He said more stupid stuff that night, I just can’t recall anything else right now .

He should have said “so you stopped me for freedom of speech?” I’d also add “I’ll make sure to cite that in the lawsuit and criminal complaint.”

The officer admitted he illegally stopped the citizen– the chief should immediately suspend him and make sure he gets educated on civil rights and Supreme Court rulings. This officer is a clear danger to the citizens of the town or city he works for. Very sad that this is how bad law enforcement has become.

If the driver was not recording these cops would have really messed with this dude. Flipping cops off is not the brightest thing to do. They’ll now be on the lookout for this dude just to screw with him.

You mentioned being “Trained to violate the rights of citizens” nor being trained in the law. This is one of the reasons most police departments will not hire someone with an IQ above 125. If you score too high on certain tests, it shows that you may be too smart to be an officer. No offense intended, but sadly they want to hire drones and robots, not intelligent humans who might question authority and the tactics of modern police departments. It’s just sad.

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