My wife, when she was younger, and a girlfriend attended a play on the north side of Chicago. Afterwards, they couldn't get a cab and decided to walk to where their car was parked, quite a distance away.
The Chicago police intercepted them and asked what the hell they were doing walking through that dangerous neighborhood at midnight. He gave them a ride to their car. Maybe they should have exercised their Constitutional rights and told the cop to buzz off, huh?
"The kid was doing absolutely nothing wrong. Nothing."
Neither was my wife.
In what way is that comparable with lying about what someone had done and then getting into their face screaming at them that they will invent false criminal charges against you? The officer did not say to this guy "I think you need to move along. We've had some problems around here and it is not safe - what are you doing here, anyway?" He threatened false charges. You are refuting points that are not being made. I think you should just admit you were wrong in what you initially said rather than trying to shape this discussion into something that it is not. Obviously you realize you were wrong or you wouldn't be trying to do this.
Your wife was lucky. Had she instead met officer friendly, he would have thrown her on the ground for being suspicious. After all what was someone that appeared out of place doing in that neighborhood. Having said that, it should still have been her choice to either accept the ride from the cop or to continue walking. Had that choice been taken away from her, you would probably been singing a different tune.
Let me put it another way. The officer stops your wife and friend. He decides that the only reason women like them would be in that area is either they are buying drugs, or are high class hookers heading home. He detains them and asks all kinds of questions that are not his business - such as “So how much do you charge for a blowjob?” or “So what are you willing to do when you’re high?”. Bear in mind that them being upset over the comments just prove their guilt. If either of them should abusively answer back or say “Good-night, I feel no desire to talk to you” and start to leave they would then be arrested for resisting arrest. This is not so different that what Brett endured.
The cop originally coming up to Brett to see if everything is OK, is fine. Actually the type of behaviour that we expect of our police. We also expect to not have to answer to the police as we are a free people. The officer should have taken the hint that Brett didn’t want to talk and left after checking his I.D. and noting his plate. Brett was not rude, but he was probably curt (nothing illegal about that). Had the officer not continued to harass him, he most likely would have been appreciative of him.
Everything from that point on was the officer harassing the kid (Brett - I’m twice your age so I can call you a kid, there is no disrespect intended). Illegal detainer (potentially rising to the level of kidnap), threats of force and intimidation, stating that he would trump up charges and ruin the kid’s future.
This officer deserves jail time, and you deserve our contempt for trying to justify in anyway his behaviour.