I have a good lawyer friend who stated it as simply as it can be stated: “The street is not the place to argue with the police; the court room is.”
More importantly, you can argue with the police all you want, BUT if your argument disturbs the peace or creates a disruption for your neighbors, then you are in fact breaking the law! And as such, you can be arrested!
I think you are lost in the minutia of this situation instead of seeing that this ALL revolves around Mr. Gates bringing in the race card - not the police officer. So, if Mr. Gates had simply cooperated with the investigation without the attitude and creating the disruption, then he would never have been arrested.
Location aside, you can still simply argue without creating a disturbance. Mr. Gates WANTED the disturbance; this was his opportunity to knock the white man down. There is absolutely NO other reason for this situation to have gotten to this point. According to the police report, this officer attempted to keep things under control and Mr. Gates did not want that!
I agree that is now the case, especially in recent years. In my view, however, it shouldn't be the case. Do you agree or disagree? A free American should have a perfect right to argue with a policeman without fear of arrest. Just because that is now not true doesn't make it right. This is not "minutia." Like it or not, this is a major case and illustrative of a major problem that transcends race.