Arrested for Contempt of Cop? A look at what is legal and what is not.

It seems that one of the often-expressed fears of the OCer who comes up against a LEO is that they will get arrested for Contempt of Cop. It is often a reasonable fear based on experiences of those who have been there before.

1. A new article appears in the AELE Monthly Law Journal.

* Contempt of Cop: Verbal Challenges, Disrespect, Arrests, and the First Amendment

Under what circumstances, if at all, can police officers arrest citizens for "contempt of cop," verbal challenges, profanity, or disrespect? Under what circumstances is criticism of police, even if couched in abusive or profane terms, constitutionally protected free speech?

View at http://www.aele.org/law/2011-10MLJ101.html

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The article is short and offers a basic primer on case law. It is not a "how to beat the rap" lesson, as it is directed towards the LEO community and telling them what they can get away with. Even so, it is worth studying.

stay safe.

AELE (Americans for Effective Law Enforcement) is headquartered in Chicago IL...

I think that says ALL we need to know about how this organization REALLY feels about individual rights, and the "authority" of LEOs and LEAs...

Dreamer,

It never hurts to look at what the other side is up to. Yes, AELE is a publication that is designed to provide information to the Law Enforcement community, as opposed to being a raging Second Amendment supporter. But trying to bash the information just because it comes from a non-friendly source is very poor tactics.

If nothing else, making this publication known to the readership here could be useful in establishing what cops knew or should have known, seeing how easy it is to supeonea information about which agencies or individual officers/administrators subscribe to the newsletter.

And no, I do not think that knowing that AELE is headquartered in Chicago "says ALL we need to know about how this organization REALLY feels about individual rights, and the "authority" of LEOs and LEAs... " Especially when the vast majority of what they publish is announcements and explanations of court rulings that have imposed limits on the activities of LEOs and LEAs.

You can hate cops all you want. You can hate organizations and publications that are focused on cop issues all you want. But please do not try and turn people away from a free source of accurate and timely information that can be just as helpful to "us" as to cops just because you seem to hate cops. It's like saying the whole public library is no good just because they have copies of the New York Times there.

stay safe.

skidmark said:

The article is short and offers a basic primer on case law. It is not a "how to beat the rap" lesson, as it is directed towards the LEO community and telling them what they can get away with.

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That's the problem, isn't it?

We can know all the statutory law and case law there is to know, but "what they can get away with" is what's going to land your butt in jail over a long holiday weekend, and cost you time, freedom, stress, and possibly thousands of dollars and your career. Even if it's tossed out by the first judge who sees it, you've been effectively punished, while the police will suffer nothing in return.

Until the risk is reciprocal, we won't enjoy liberty in this nation.

Good/Interesting information.

Thx skidmark!!

OC for ME said:

^^^What he said.

Fore warned is forearmed. Gives me pause and motivates me to read local ordinances and state statute on this subject.

Good info skidmark, thanks for the effort.

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And ^^^ what he said.

Good post and subsequent defense, skidmark.