I feel badly for this guy but drinking on a public street is a no-no in most places in North America. There is something to be said for understanding the local rules, regardless of how stupid they may be.
I understand it is a bad situation and everything, but as you said, that's just the way it works here.
In fact, he got off pretty light talking to the cops like that in NYC. You should thank your lucky stars that you were not...say...black American...you would have had a WHOLE lot harder time.
I guess what I am trying to say is that, unless you left something out, it sounds like you were treated a good deal better than most NYC residents would have been treated under similar conditions.
Now that IS a bad thing...I realize...but...you know...
I'm just sayin'...it's not like they will single out foreigners.
It is --- I assume this goes without saying, but this is HN and we're talking about the police so here goes --- much easier for the police in France to invasively search the people they detain, as well.
Incivility and even hostility is an unfortunate fact of life when dealing with urban police. You might just as productively complain about the weather. Or, if you're of a mind to see the other sides of issues, read a couple police blogs to get a feel for the shit city cops have to deal with.
They are, to be sure, authoritarians. The people that tend to post on HN, myself included, are not wired to be particularly tolerant of authoritarian behaviors. But they are not intrinsically bad people. They're doing an important and very difficult job, often under shockingly bad circumstances.
At the very least, try to remind yourself that when dealing with the police, you can get 1000x more power and control over the situation by being polite and (at least superficially) compliant than you can by being firm and unyielding. It is rare for people to be polite during police confrontations. Belligerent? All the time. Terrified? Sure. Calm and polite? Almost never. There's an exploitable vulnerability in police ability to handle calm, polite behavior.
I wish things were different, to be honest, but if you put yourself in the law enforcement officer's point of view, what's the difference between a few tourists enjoying a bottle of wine on the street, and a few drunken hooligans causing trouble and starting fights. I'm not saying you were doing anything like that, but a cop really can't discriminate.
I do believe the way they treated you was unacceptable, however, and you should file a complaint against the arresting officers. I believe in NYC you can dial 311 to do this. Police officers should be held to a higher standard and they are trained that the response to any situation should be justified - in other words: violent, belligerent drunk gets slammed into a wall and handcuffed. Happy, carefree drunk tourists should get calmly spoken with and given a warning.
Don't make needless excuses. Firstly, there are many ways the law discriminates in your example; given your description, a cop could probably cite the second group for disorderly conduct or assault.
In addition, cops are not machines who accept a sequence of events and output "legal" or "illegal." Nor should they be, or could they be, given the complexity of law. An individual officer is indeed expected to exercise discretion and to enforce the law in ways that help society. It's impossible to take that discretion away from them, since we don't always have a way to judge the objective truth of situations without trusting some of the people involved, so we should remember that they hold that responsibility and be wary of attempts to discharge it.
Open container enforcement is a quality-of-life issue. Tourists and bros won't appreciate it, but you should be aware that in many places, the residents not only do appreciate it, but get angry if it doesn't happen. I'd be pissed if people were wandering up and down my street drinking in the middle of the night.
Finally: with regards to "making excuses", you should get over it. Getting mad at the police for being assholes isn't going to get you anywhere. You can be "message-board-correct" about this all you want, but there is zero power to be had in standing up for your right not to be verbally abused by the police. You are the least of anyone in the NYPD's problems. There is, on the other hand, tremendous power to be had in being able to come back at abusive behavior with calmness, politeness, and appropriate compliance (don't consent to searches).
He wasn't doing anything horrible or dangerous, but was treated like a base criminal. And that's the real issue--a complete lack of decency and civility by people given additional power and trust by the state.
On a serious note, everything that you have said is what I wanted to say so I won't repeat. But how do you deal with this issue? Why does no one seem to be taking action?
This post will get some comments and by tomorrow it will be forgotten. It is your(everyone who agrees with this issue) country, why not do something about it before it gets worse?