It all started, Greg Bombard said, with a broken coffee maker. That’s what prompted him to get into his car and head to Dunkin’ on a winter day in 2018.
It ended this month when the state of Vermont paid Bombard $175,000 to settle the lawsuit that ultimately resulted from that short drive.
The settlement covers Bombard’s arrest that day by a state trooper who said the St. Albans Town man flipped him the middle finger — and a second, related citation nearly six years later, on Christmas Day.
I just watched this on Audit the Audit, so good on this guy for following up. The video was incredibly obvious that the cop was in the wrong. Basically, the video went like this:
The first may have been retaliatory (not clear, cop may have been able to defend it as a welfare stop), but the second absolutely was retaliatory and blatantly illegal. I'm surprised the award was only $175k and nothing more happened because it was a clear violation of Greg's constitutional rights, which have been clearly defined through case law to include criticism of the police.
Screw this cop and the entire department that allows this nonsense. This was also on Christmas, which makes it so much worse...
Disrespect is protected speech and has been enshrined in case law, and police are expected (again, in case law) to be held to a higher standard than the average citizen. So middle fingers and profanity are absolutely protected speech, just don't commit any actual crimes while expressing yourself because the police will look for a way to arrest you if you're doing that. And there are a lot of technicalities (e.g. when you need to identify yourself, what constitutes a "lawful order," and what "disturbing the peace" means). So if you're driving, drive the speed limit, keep your plates updated, etc if you plan to give police the bird.