First, yelling something to cause a disruption is not protected speech when it might cause a public danger, but all other speech, and especially written comments, are protected, so far. It may not be very smart, but you are still protected when swearing at a cop, unless you do so in a crowd situation and try to cause a disruption to his duties. He may find a charge, or just go for the maximum charge for whatever he had stopped you for in the first place, but it is not illegal to just swear at him. Most good training emphasizes ignoring the words, unless they are intended to incite others (into a riot, or something.)
As far as scaring some sense into him, this is way past that. The one good thing that might, but not likely, come out of this is the Supreme Court actually stepping in and reaffirmng protected speech. This case is pure bull****. When they ruined the families' vacation by pulling them off the plane, they had already done more than enough to make their point. This is more likely just cya, so that they can't be sued for abuse of powers by claiming, "well, we charged him, so we can't be wrong..." |
