Court: Flipping the bird to cop is free speech

By Fred Barbash March 13 at 7:15 PM

Woman gets stopped for speeding. Cop shows mercy and gives her a ticket for a non-moving violation. As police officer pulls away, however, woman gives him the finger, or as a U.S. District Court puts it, “flips him the bird.”

Cop takes offense, switches on lights and siren and stops her again, ploughing into her car in the process and then, on top of that, changing the original ticket to a moving violation.

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Judge Jeffrey Sutton, writing for a unanimous three-judge panel Wednesday, disagreed.

While suggesting the woman was a bit “ungrateful,” the second stop was not reasonable, and the officer should have known it, Sutton said.

To justify the second stop, he wrote affirming the district court, Minard needed “probable cause that she had committed” a violation.

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