How utterly ridiculous. Should have told the flipper to bug off and wished them a nice day. Today, citizens have to pay good money for the tiniest thing.
Of course their juries in Vermonts are nuts so you have to guard against the jury going rogue and delivering a vast amount, yet, taking the facts as given, that seems like a pretty high settlement
Hubby and I have watched the video of that encounter two or three times on “cops violating rights” videos over the past few months. Each time I saw it, I was more pissed than the last.
The guy is lucky he was not just gunned down for disrespect and butthurt.
Cop should work for TSA where there are signs up about not hurting the drone’s feelings.
Hopefully that officer is fired.
Serious stuff that.
This is the kind of stuff where police really get bad reps. You don’t control the world just because you have a badge. There are good reasons for a car stop, this is not one of them.
really not much of a cop, if he couldn’t figure out something to stop him for other than that... just sayin
Did the 16 year old Nick Sandeman even get this much for hits lawsuit when the media networks slandered him?
I flipped off a cop back in the ‘80s, but didn’t know he was a cop — was in plain clothes.
Going to my brother’s wedding, Dad was driving in a big city he’d never been in before, so his pace was slow, jerky, and a little off looking at street signs. I was in the back seat. Some guy behind us was tailgating and making Dad even more nervous. So I did the finger thing. (Dad had his “Clergy” sticker on the car, too - LOL!)
The guy motioned Dad to pull over, which he did. Asked Dad if he needed help with directions — which he did. As the cop walked by the rear window where I was, back toward his car, he smiled and winked at me.
There are these two guys out in AZ who drive around and flash a flashlight at cop cars as they drive by. Inevitably there will be A cop who falls for it and pulls them over. Naturally they video the whole thing. Refuse to get out of the car, taunt the cop etc. Its actually pretty hilarious. Eventually the supervisor shows up and tells the cop its not against the law to flash a flashlight and everyone goes home.
There have been a number of cases testing the free speech protections of “flipping the bird,” including a couple at appeals court level (most recently Cruise-Gulyas v. Minard, No. 18-2196 [6th Cir. 2019]), and I can’t recall a single one that didn’t hold that giving somebody the finger — even the PoPo — was protected by 1A.
because they can.
Back years ago I had a girlfriend that her middle finger got broken and was in a finger brace, taped up and all that. She was driving to work and at a traffic light made a left turn and her hand was on the steering wheel with that finger pointing upwards while she was turning the steering wheel and there was a cop in the oncoming lane waiting for the lights to change and he pulled her over thinking she was flipping him off. She pulled over and rolled the window down as he was walking up to her and started in on her about obscene gestures and she stuck her hand out the window for him to see. He said never mind, turned around and walked back to his car.