The Bird's Legal

From RT:
"Flipping-off the cops is totally constitutional"

Next time you see a police officer on patrol, go right ahead and give ‘em the finger. Don’t worry: a federal judge says it’s perfectly alright. More than six years after John Swartz was handcuffed and arrested for flipping-off a police officer in St. Johnsville, New York, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit says he committed no crime. According to court filings, the officer that Mr. Swartz initially flipped off considered the gesture a signal of distress. Insogna says he decided to initiate a traffic stop because it appeared Swartz was “trying to get my attention for some reason.” "An irate automobile passenger’s act of ‘giving the finger,’ a gesture of insult known for centuries, to a policeman has led to a seizure of two persons ordered to return to an automobile, an arrest for disorderly conduct, a civil rights suit, and now this appeal,” Circuit Judiige Jon O. Newman writes this week. Newman has appealed the earlier decision that granted summary judgment to the defendants — Officer Insogna and a colleagues — and has remanded for further proceedings.

“The only act Insogna had observed prior to the stop that prompted him to initiate the stop was John’s giving the-finger gesture,” he adds. “Insogna acknowledged in his deposition that he had not observed any indication of a motor vehicle violation. He stated, somewhat inconsistently, that he thought John ‘was trying to get my attention for some reason’ and that he ‘was concerned for the female driver.’”

^ Good to know. ^

http://rt.com/usa/news/officer-police-swartz-finger-308/