Yell at the Police - It's Legal

Obama Was Right About the Gates Arrest: "Massachusetts law clearly provides that Gates did not commit disorderly conduct.

The Cambridge Police should be training their officers to know the difference between legal and illegal conduct. What Gates did was probably not so smart -- in general, be nice to people carrying guns -- but it wasn't disorderly conduct. At least not in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

That explains why the charges against Gates were dropped. It wasn't because the police were trying to defuse the situation. It was because Gates had done nothing illegal.

Arresting someone for doing something that isn't illegal is pretty stupid.

Then again, perhaps Obama was wrong. Maybe the police officer wasn't acting stupidly. He was just acting abusively. That is even worse..."


"...Under Massachusetts law, which the police officer was supposedly enforcing, yelling at a police officer is not illegal.

There are clear decisions of the Massachusetts courts holding that a person who berates an officer, even during an arrest, is not guilty of disorderly conduct. And yet that is exactly what Gates was arrested for."

Railroading Gates ended badly for the force. They arrested a man who had not broken the law.