> When on the receiving end of verbal disrespect, are the police
> justified in making an arrest when no other law has been broken,
> and/or are they justified in roughing up a citizen as a response to
> this verbal disrespect?
I don't know where you get this stuff ("this stuff" == "the outrageous suggestion that I would answer yes to your hyperbolic questions"), but I'll play along and say no: cops (and indeed all citizens, who in the US have powers of arrest) are only justified in making an arrest when a law has been broken (is this some kind of tautology test?)[*]. It's possible that you don't know the difference between a valid arrest and an invalid one, I suppose. And FWIW, they are never justified in "roughing up a citizen" ... I mean, duh?
Does that make you happy? It doesn't conflict with anything else I've said.
Perhaps you mean to say that discretion is the better part of valor? That might be a nicer world, but I don't see any other professions having that demanded of them. That's what made your original statement funny to me.
Perhaps you mean to say that Gates was arrested for giving "verbal disrespect" to the cop? I don't think that's accurate. Perhaps you think that Gates was roughed up? I don't think that's accurate either.
---
> ... instead of really trying to get a handle on my position ...
I read your position as follows:
>> What we should demand from police officers is that they behave
>> professionally in all situations, even if it means taking a little
>> disrespect from a black man, and contain their white supremacist
>> authoritarian egos.
Which a) doesn't appear to have anything to do with the subject at hand; and b) is still funny to me, because of the people who get abuse pitched at them on a regular basis, cops are typically *more* tolerant of it than non-cops[**]. I'll try to say it more plainly: I *don't* think we should "demand from police officers that they behave professionally in all situations" ... This is not because I think they are special, but rather that I think they are ordinary. When all the other professionals out there are held to this standard, we can talk.
In the mean time, unless you'd like to detail how Crowley:
- Acted unprofessionally - Has a "white supremacist authoritarian ego" (whatever that is) - Allowed said ego to become uncontained
... you're just pissing in the wind.
I'm not even one of those people who believe that you "should" be deferential to cops just to keep them from getting mad at you, but you're way out of line on this one.
/jordan
[*] Actually, there's a whole other class of 'valid' arrest scenarios that don't involve the actual breaking of a law, but they oftentimes don't lead to custody. IANAL, but I think I probably know more about police procedure and the law than you do. Just saying.
[**] If you give even a little bit of creedence to the report that Crowley filed (and even reasoned analysis that leans critical of it[***]), Crowley was *walking away* from the abuse that Gates was dishing out at the point where things went sideways. It seems that Crowley was, afterall, doing a good job responding to your demand ...
[***] Crooked Timber, as usual, has some good stuff on this, like:
http://crookedtimber.org/2009/07/21/discretion-and-arrest-power/