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The officer's report from the Gates incident had Gates coming out onto the street and yelling more after Gates had left his home. I don't know at what point yelling at police officers starts getting in the way of that work, but there is that point somewhere.

The 911 caller has claimed several parts of Crowley's report are false[1]. Given this, I trust Gates' version of the events over Crowley's. According to Gates, he was arrested after following the officer onto the house's porch, when he demanding the officer's name and identification number (which Crowley was legally obliged to provide).

Furthermore, as Gates had a bronchial infection at the time[2], he wouldn't have been able to yell / abuse the officers in the way they claim occured.

[1] http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/07/27/gates.arrest/index.html

[2] http://www.theroot.com/print/19236?page=0%2C0

I understand the pressure, and it makes sense that we should treat them as respectfully as any other person. Yet, police should be expected to react rationally regardless of the situation. They should be prepared for all manner of verbal abuse; it comes with the job.

As an example, take a look at E.R. doctors. They treat a lot of people who are insanely abusive, both physically and verbally. Do they refuse to treat these patients? No, they are required by law and by their hippocratic oath to care for their patients. I work at UCSF, and residents tell me their war stories about drugged up patients who scream profanities at the doctors endlessly. Should a resident retaliate in any way, they would be pulled from their program. This process forces E.R. doctors to have thick skin and learn to cope with assholes on the job.

If we are to give police officers this insane amount of power to the public, we should expect nothing less than their ability to withstand some idiot's verbal tyrades.

Would some of the people who anonymously downvoted care to explain why?

When I was a teenager, I had some anti-police/anti-law angst like a lot of people in free countries feel and express. After traveling, and seeing how police operate in the second and third world, I can confidently say we have some pretty outstanding officers in the United States. A good friend's father is a policeman as well, so I've gotten to hear a few stories of how policework goes.

Here's the points I made:

Point #1: Abusing police is not okay, gets in the way of their work, and at some point, is no longer protected speech but instead a crime. I don't know where that line is, but it's somewhere.

Point #2: Being rude and insulting to any people with power over you is likely a bad play, and they'll probably make your life harder.

Point #3: The article mentions a number of negative police incidents, but really doesn't give much respect to the vast majority of officers who are doing a good job in hard work. I think that's a bad thing.

I'd be happy to discuss with anyone who disagrees philosophically or factually, and hopefully I'll learn something.

"Point #3: The article mentions a number of negative police incidents, but really doesn't give much respect to the vast majority of officers who are doing a good job in hard work. I think that's a bad thing."

Every time you criticize creationism, make sure you also point out all the really good things Christians do.

Every time you criticize a movie, make sure you also point out all the really cool films Hollywood puts out.

Every time you criticize a politician, make sure you also point out all the really good things that the government does.

...

The article is not about whether the police are good or bad. The article is about whether the police have too much power.

1: Abusing the police != being rude to the police. You're conflating the two. Saying "Leave me alone, you useless pigs" is not interfering with police business; it's hard to imagine an example use of speech that would be.

2: That's true, but the whole point of the article is that even though it might be inconvenient to you to challenge the police when they abuse their power, it is still an abuse of power. This whole question is specifically addressed in the article.

3: This article is specifically about systematic abuse of police power. That's a real problem. Its truth has no dependence on them complimenting the police who don't abuse their power. This is completely irrelevant to whether the article's argument is true.

In short, your 2/3 of your arguments are irrelevant to the article completely. Your first point, while engaging the article, is essentially contradiction by assertion (you provide no evidence that the kinds of abuses discussed in the article could ever be considered interference with police work). So that's a very very weak point. That's probably why you were voted down.

Thank you for the reply, this is exactly the kind of discussion I was hoping we might have.

> 1: Abusing the police != being rude to the police. You're conflating the two.

I was trying not to. In the original comment, I wrote, "I don't know at what point yelling at police officers starts getting in the way of that work, but there is that point somewhere." I'm not sure where the line is, and I'm not making a judgment call on Gates' arrest. I did mention the officer wrote in his report (which may be false or falsified - I don't know) that Gates followed him into the streets yelling at him. At some point, a person doing that is crossing a line from protected speech into interfering with police work. Again, I don't know where that line is - it's a particularly sticky subject. Police should probably err on the side of letting people air their thoughts in the form they choose.

> 2. ... This whole question is specifically addressed in the article.

Very briefly - and I get worried that some young person here, who is really idealistic, gets into trouble by asserting their rights to an officer while in college or whatever. For my part, I can't stand customs officials who go over the line and search me repeatedly and generally waste my time, but I'm extremely friendly and respectful and talk about the local sports even though I can't stand that scum. Y'know why? Because they'll mess with you if not. My part of the comment isn't an apology for bad policework, it's a practical note so people whipped into a frenzy don't get into trouble. [Also note - the two times I mouthed off to customs officials, I got an arduous, detailed search afterwards. I learned that real life lesson the hard way]

> 3. This article is specifically about systematic abuse of police power. That's a real problem. Its truth has no dependence on them complimenting the police who don't abuse their power. This is completely irrelevant to whether the article's argument is true.

Right! Systematic - that means happening all over the place. I don't think it is - the article points out a few brutal abuses of police power and doesn't give statistics for how common it is or put it in context of other nations. Our officers in the USA are pretty good. I'm a big rights guy - very big - but implying there's a huge problem when in fact it's a few isolated incidents would be a bad thing. Or who knows - maybe there is a systemic problem, but the article just has a few anecdotes and no statistics. And certainly, all of those anecdotes and no statistics are hostile.

> In short, your 2/3 of your arguments are irrelevant to the article completely. Your first point, while engaging the article, is essentially contradiction by assertion (you provide no evidence that the kinds of abuses discussed in the article could ever be considered interference with police work). So that's a very very weak point. That's probably why you were voted down.

Well, I'm voting you up for taking the time to respond. Thank you for the discussion, and I look forward to more whenever you please.

>"Systematic - that means happening all over the place. I don't think it is - the article points out a few brutal abuses of police power and doesn't give statistics for how common it is or put it in context of other nations."

Amnesty international does that.

http://www.amnestyusa.org/us-human-rights/page.do?id=1011100

This article was focused on the issue of how little most Americans care about the excessive powers granted to their police. Your own reaction only serves to emphasize the point.

If you really don't see anything wrong with having the largest prisoner population in the world (beating out Russia and China both in absolute and per capita terms) the second highest rate of executions, hundreds of people being tased to death by officers, officers being able to arrest people in their own homes for exercising their rights, and widespread surveillance on citizens without warrants, then reason.com may not be the site for you.

If you really don't see anything wrong with having the largest prisoner population in the world

The U.S. also has a very high crime rate compared to China and the European countries. More criminals means more people in prison.

The American legal system is like the bad parent who alternates between being over-lenient and being violently strict. Much of the time policing is actually far too lax. Most people selling drugs are never caught, most gang killings are never tracked down, and most home burglars are never captured. This lax policing allows too much crime, and eventually the police are forced to react. They do so in a blunt and ham-fisted manner. Cops break into the wrong homes in an attempt to make headline grabbing drug busts.

Think of it in terms of math: which has a higher prisoner population, the country that catches the perpetrator of 98% of crimes, or the country that catches perpertrators only 10% of the time? The answer is the second country has a much higher criminal population. The lower probability of getting caught increases the amount of crime, which means total jail population is much higher.

Asian countries like Singapore and China on the other hand are the consistently stern parent. In Singapore there is a 99% chance of getting caught if you murdered someone. Thus there are virtually no murders, and a very small prisoner population.

Both sides of the law and order debate need to realize that American law enforcement is simultaneously too tax and too heavy handed. This is not a contradiction, its the reality.

Many American cities (Philadelphia, Baltimore) have homicide rates that have been unseen in Western civilization since medieval times. This is a huge problem. It needs to be addressed. Any proposed reform that tries to lower police abuse without also lowering the crime rate will result in failure ( and by increasing crime, will in the long term actually increase police abuses).

> The U.S. also has a very high crime rate compared to China and the European countries. More criminals means more people in prison.

That's a natural result of outlawing so much victim-less behavior. If for example, drugs were legal, much of that crime would simply disappear and our prisons would be much less crowded.

Neither Singapore nor China allows drugs, yet their crime rate is much lower and their prisons much less crowded. Most European countries also outlaw drugs.

They don't have a "war on drugs", either.

Here in Taiwan, there are some very strict drug laws on the books, and yet weed and club drugs are pretty common, as they are in Singapore. Unlike the US, though, enforcement of drug laws isn't a high priority. There are people in jail for drug selling and production, but very few for casual use.

There are people in jail for drug selling and production, but very few for casual use.

The U.S. is the same way: http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/demand/speakout/10so.htm "The Michigan Department of Corrections just finished a study of their inmate population. They discovered that out of 47,000 inmates, only 15 people were incarcerated on first-time drug possession charges."

No, it's not the same. Even a cursory look at the issue shows that much of the US prison population is due to "3 strikes" laws. By looking only at first time possession charges, that entire group is missed.

Furthermore, police in the US have the power to seize cars, seize money, and quite number of other things without warrant, based upon the suspicion of drugs being involved. They can't do that here.

That doesn't even negate my point. The point is we're declaring a class of people criminals because we don't like them, rather than because they've harmed anyone. This creates a black market for goods which then attracts even more crime and creates more serious criminals.

If you want to see less criminals, start requiring that crimes have actual victims. Consenting adults trading goods and services, whether they be drugs, sex, or anything else, should not simply be declared criminals.

How Singapore and China deals with the issue isn't even slightly relevant to the issue.

Imagine the crime rates if we declared coffee drinkers criminals. We'd have to jail a lot more people and build a lot more prisons because you cannot stop people from engaging in victim-less behavior that they enjoy.

Again, I don't know where that line is - it's a particularly sticky subject. Police should probably err on the side of letting people air their thoughts in the form they choose.

One would think that they should particularly err on that side if people are angry because they were just falsely accused of breaking into their own home.

I don't think anyone is defending hurling insults at random police officers. However, if you just invaded someone's home and treated them like a burglar in their own home, I think the police officer should realize that the cause of any angry behavior here is himself and just apologize and leave.

> Right! Systematic - that means happening all over the place. I don't think it is

You must be white.

Policemen being upset with verbal abuse is fine. Not working as hard? Fine, too. Arresting the person who is yelling insults is not fine - it's vindictiveness and abuse of power.

There is really nothing special about the cop person deserving of more or less respect compared to other normal people. It's only the cop's mission that deserves deference and should define possible criminality of any communication initiative. For example:

If a cop is aiming a sniper rifle to kill a hostage-taker, complimenting the cop on his uniform is interference, and should be a crime - it impedes the execution of the law.

If a cop is walking down the street, hurling insults and making faces at him is not really impeding the execution of the law (uncivilized as it is), should not be a crime or grounds for arrest. Getting in the way may be a crime if the 5 seconds that took to sidestep the perp can actually impede the execution of the law. Asking for a badge number is interference, but is specifically enumerated as a trade-off worth making and not a crime.

Now, sometimes cops are obligated to work with people who are being jerks. This problem is also well-known to DOL, USPS employees and even many people in private sector. There could be a separate law created that says "if by law we must work with you, by law you must behave or pay a measured fine". Such law then could provide deterrence against verbal abuse for all people who are not able to get out of obligation to work with nasty people. I doubt that arresting the insulter would be as a remedy in such law, at worst I see 10-minute detention to identify the person's name and address where the $250 fine could be mailed to, akin to a traffic ticket. And this protection should not be specific to only police, or even government employees - an ambulance worker, or someone assisting disabled people may also be not in a position to turn away the jerk, but then they should get protected as well.

Overall I am in favor of measured responses, Powell's military doctrine should not be applied to your own citizenry.

I don't agree with this comment, but are the votes against it really that reasonable?

To me, it appears more as "-1:I Disagree" votes, which IMO ought to be avoided when possible.

If anything, perhaps it would be better to instead vote up jmillikin's rebuttal.