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Do you have any idea how often - perhaps in less toney neighborhoods than Cambridge - an arrestee successfully incites a crowd to attack a police officer?

It's rare. Mostly they incite laughter and amusement, which is why there is so much police reality entertainment on TV. Your standard for tossing the First Amendment is disturbingly low, as low as the left's standard for tossing the Second. Unless Gates was making credible fists, swinging his cane, or yelling for the crowd to attack, his disorderly speech did not rise to the level of disorderly conduct. He has a case for false arrest, and it would be patriotic to pursue it to push back on government worker conduct. The police are held to a much higher standard while on the taxpayer clock.

Um . . . it's not rare. I could give you published examples of several recent incidents in the Georgia case reports, but LEXIS costs money. Dispatch transcripts of officers frantically radioing for backup because they're surrounded. And those are only the cases that get to the appeals process.

The officer's training would instruct him to be wary of a gathering crowd. While you wouldn't expect a Cambridge gathering to be in full "kill the pigs" mindset, he's already got one guy who seems to be a little off the plumb of acceptable social behavior, maybe he's got like-minded friends.