Vermont Man Who Cursed At, Flipped Off Cop Scores Settlement From The State
from the policed-by-snowflakes dept
You know, rather than paying out thousands or millions in lawsuits for retaliatory arrests, maybe states should just spend more money on skin thickening for their police officers.
It’s not like case law isn’t pretty much completely established at this point. Flipping the bird to a cop is protected speech. So is complaining, however profanely, about your recent experience with said officer.
The precedent is everywhere. Obviously, cops will never be happy when someone they stop or address responds with one finger salutes and/or insulting verbiage. But being unhappy is not the same thing as probable cause for an arrest. “Contempt of cop” is not a crime. But try convincing cops of that fact. It’s impossible.
Refusing to learn isn’t the same thing as being a “reasonable” officer. And that means it’s almost impossible to secure qualified immunity when you’ve arrested someone for being rude to you.
Since that’s the direction this case was headed, the state of Vermont has chosen to exit early, rather than wait and see just how bad the damages might get if handed over to a jury.
Vermont has agreed to pay $175,000 to settle a lawsuit on behalf of a man who was charged with a crime for giving a state trooper the middle finger in 2018, the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union said Wednesday.
The lawsuit was filed in 2021 by the ACLU of Vermont on behalf of Gregory Bombard, of St. Albans. It says Bombard’s First Amendment rights were violated after an unnecessary traffic stop and retaliatory arrest in 2018.
All Bombard had to do was extend a finger and use his voice a bit following a traffic stop. In return, he’ll be walking away with $100,000 for himself and $75,000 for his legal representative from FIRE and the ACLU.
As his lawsuit alleges, he was pulled over after driving away from the initial traffic stop with a middle finger extended. (Bombard denies he flipped off the cop.) When he was pulled over for a second time, he cursed at the officer, who then unbelievably (and unconstitutionally) told Bombard his actions and words were “disorderly conduct 101.” Bombard was arrested, his car was impounded, and he was jailed for an hour.
The officer was clearly in the wrong, something made clear almost immediately as the criminal court dropped one of the charges against him and the state soon dropped the other charge. Qualified immunity was denied and the trial court’s decision contained this great paragraph that expresses incredulity at the ridiculous defenses raised by the government.
The State also argues that Mr. Bombard has insufficiently pleaded that his free speech rights have been “chilled.” It asserts: “because the second stop, arrest, and towed vehicle were lawful and he continued to later protest these actions in both criminal and civil court, Plaintiff does not cognizably allege such actions chilled his speech.”
It supports this argument largely by reference to cases in which, under the circumstances presented, no injury was apparent or at least only an indirect injury was asserted. The State’s argument is out of step with Vermont’s Rule 12(b)(6) standard. Moreover, if filing a lawsuit based on chilled speech itself proved that no speech was chilled, no legal claim premised on chilled speech could ever be cognizable.
So, that’s how things were going late last year. Six months later, Bombard and his legal reps are getting paid for an arrest any reasonable cop should have known would be impermissible under the Constitution. Unfortunately for Vermont residents, they’ll be paying $175,000 extra for this level of service.
Filed Under: 1st amendment, free speech, gregory bombard, jay riggen, st albans police, vermont
Comments on “Vermont Man Who Cursed At, Flipped Off Cop Scores Settlement From The State”
New legislation needed
We need two things…
1) A national registry of law enforcement officers that tracks their start/stop dates at each municipality where they are employed as well as any negative occurrences that led to their no longer being employed at a location and any lawsuits that they have been a defendant in and lost…
2) Mandatory Malpractice Insurance for law enforcement officers that pays out when they are in situations like the PO mentioned in this article – make the premiums reasonable for L.E. with clean histories and maybe state/county/cities can offer to pay the premiums for L.E. members who can behave themselves. But after a clear mess up like the one in this article, the premiums go up – and eventually it becomes too expensive for the state/county/city to pay their premiums and they have to be paid for by the LE person themselves.
This has the benefit of not requiring tax-payers to have to pay off fines to other tax-payers when L.E. personnel screw up, and keeps L.E. personnel from being able to screw up too many times before it’s no longer financially feasible for anyone to hire them, or for them to be able to pay their own premiums. And if they try to serve without having insurance? It’s a crime and they get fired and/or arrested – just like being required to have some minimum level of liability insurance on a motor vehicle. And the national registry means they can’t get fired and move to the next town over and start again because their previous job information is available to any new state/county/city that may be interested in hiring them.
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None of that really does anything.
Employment history of basically everyone, including government employees, is already widely available. The problem is that the police departments don’t care, not that they don’t know.
Cities also already pay for liability insurance to cover their police officers (and/or hire actuaries and self-insure those officers). Either way, those insurers already adjust premiums to account for risk. Arbitrarily splitting those policies out into individual policies might sound impressive, but the total cost will remain exactly the same, because the total risk remains exactly the same. The cities are currently happy to pay the cost, and they will continue to be happy to pay the cost regardless of the number of line items you split that cost into. Payouts are made, premiums go up, and nobody cares.
Which is ultimately the problem: voters don’t care about the cost of legal liability. If they did, then this payout would already be sufficient for the voters to revolt. If they won’t object to $100k, they won’t do anything for an extra $10k risk premium. And unless voters object, playing monetary games won’t work. It’s not the city’s money after all, wasting it only hurts if they lose the next election because of it.
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Hmmm…I think most voters simply don’t have that kind of memory, or have signed up for the pro/anti cop binary mentality. Pro cop wants nothing changed. Anti-cop wants so much more than liability reform.
Its also an open question if this is something that the average voter should be basing their choices on. If you are electing a new mayor, sure police policy is a point to use in decision making. But all the way down to liability insurance policies?
I think that using the overly litigious American system of civil law isn’t the right way to go. We need more accountability of Chiefs of Police, more citizen oversight boards, much better hiring standards (education, prior policing performance, etc).
We can’t just sue our way out of a broken system – civil lawsuits are only money pressure. Many many many mayors, city councils, and bureaucratic staff will all fall back on “Anything to Keep the Children Safe” and just pay. It won’t actually change the broken policing system and attitudes.
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I think another aspect is how likely a voter is going to have access to the information – offenses and misdemeanors committed by a police department, on the watch of the chief of police or the mayor. The average voter is not likely to have the time, resources or motivation to chase all this via FOIA requests, not without leads. And then sort through that information, and then put it somewhere visible for others to scrutinize and get the ball rolling.
That’s not even factoring in that doing so would put them at a very real risk of retaliation. And after all that’s done, it’s trivially easy for a rogue cop to dismiss attention from a single act or a pattern of established behavior. A department of cops can also stand up for their colleague under fire, and the same goes for a police chief or mayor. Alternatively, they can dismiss the single rogue cop as an anomaly, promise action, and then proceed to do nothing while keeping the ingrained policing culture premised on racism and bigotry completely intact.
And all of this is assuming that the other options that voters have aren’t going to simply do more of the same and enable the worst policing behaviors if they replace the ruling status quo. In short? The odds are generally stacked against voters making any kind of progress against shitty cops.
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Arguably, one of the most effective ways to pressure “the system” to implement those things, could well be to have some sort of personal “malpractice” liability insurance, that the individual officers would be responsible for paying.
It’s hardly as if these police officers are underpaid — if medical practitioners can manage, then at their pay scale, police officers certainly could too.
This way, perhaps the police unions (or at least, the police union memberships) might be much readier to see those other, oversight measures as being in their own interest.
Re: Really good idea
Actually, I think that’s a really good idea. Malpractice insurance drives bad doctors and lawyers out of those professions so it might drive out bad cops too.
We might even see insurance companies requiring cops to attend annual refresher courses on what they can and can’t do, maybe even resulting in less of “the more ignorant the cop, the greater the chance of getting qualified immunity just for being the dumbest prick on the block.”
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“We might even see insurance companies requiring ”
.. access to body cam footage on an individual officer basis accompanied by a psych eval.
What would be interesting in stories like this would be to highlight the crime that happened around that time.
Like “officer arrests man for flipping him off while child kidnapping went unanswered”
And that should never have happened. First of all, any settlement should come from the cop’s pocket rather than that of the taxpayer. Second, the cop should never have given reason for this lawsuit to exist by carrying out a clearly unconstitutional arrest.
If you can't handle some mean words you can't handle the job
Ah yes, another fine example of the unflappable bravery and courage by the police, I’m sure an officer that responds in such a manner is completely fit to deal with other stressful situations with a level head and balanced judgement.
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At the least said officer should lose his right to carry a weapon while on duty.
I think the cops should have to earn the right to be able to carry a weapon in public and not just passing some gimme cop training program. They need to prove they can deal with the public in a truly reasonable manner that is decided by the public, not the cops, before being given the unbelievable right to have the potential to use deadly force in public.
The current system is not working as too many cowards and dickheads are being given weapons and then the courts let them walk free after destroying peoples lives.
Context
Context is important. The original intent of “the finger” was very much a threat, since it implied an intent (and ability) to shoot someone. Of course, it’s likely that nobody involved knew the actual meaning of the gesture, since most seem to think it implies some sort of carnal contact.
The epithets are protected by free speech, but if this man’s actual intent was to threaten someone with armed mayhem, that’s a crime, regardless of who it was directed at.
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And the state would have to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that he flipped the bird at a cop with that intent. Given that most people probably don’t know why that gesture is “rude”, I highly doubt a prosecutor could make that case.
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Imagine if everybody in the world knew why flipping the bird is considered rude, that’s still not inherently threatening, so the state would be unable to prove that there was any intent to threaten anyone with armed mayhem in any case. Just sayin’.
Re: "Just so" stories
I’m an old retired geezer, who’s worked in several different fields — from outdoors physical to office work — and I have never, not once, heard this “origin story” ever before.
Naturally, this makes me a little suspicious.
And in fact, a quick web-search indicates that “flipping the bird” has been recognized as a vulgar insult since at least the ancient Greeks (and occasionally, in some cultures) as a gesture to ward against “the evil eye”.
So I can’t help but wonder if this “Just So” tale about the one-finger salute having once been, or plausibly being considered, a threat, might actually be just a newly invented narrative in service of an agenda.
You have the right to be an asshole
Some people push the 1st amendment to its limits and exercise their right to be awful.
I find it easier to just respect others. That cop you just flipped off just may end up saving your life one day.
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I find it easier to just respect others.
Tell that to the cop. I find it problematic that someone should not be annoyed that his time was being wasted by a cop who clearly should have known better. This is a clear signal to others in the same situation that giving some thin-skinned cop the finger might just result in another $175k payout. Think about the residents paying for the cop’s arrogance, and how much ‘respect’ he’s earned from them.
That cop you just flipped off just may end up saving your life one day.
Assuming his feelings aren’t hurt at the sight of something more ominous than a dreaded middle finger. If this is his reaction for his feelings being hurt, what makes you think anyone would have the confidence that he’d act so bravely in a rescue situation?
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“Some people push the 1st amendment to its limits and exercise their right to be awful.”
The lady who gave donny the finger was not being awful nor pushing any limit. She was let go after it went viral but then she got a better job – lol.
“I find it easier to just respect others.”
I find that respect is earned.
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Yes, and now the state has to pay for the cop’s mistake.
You were talking about the cop exercising his right to be awful, weren’t you?
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Here, FIFY.
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Here, FIMFY.
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Where do you reckon Asians lie on that spectrum? Seems to be a bit of a 50-50…
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FYI, the M in FIMFY stands for the word ‘more’, not ‘completely’. Dipstick.
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Awww, the cop-haters are upset again!
Re: Do you prefer mustard or mayo on your shoe leather?
Bruh you’re the one whining like a bitch
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There’s at least 2 people being upset here. You, because you just had to make a intelligence free post. The cop, who got upset when someone flipped him the bird.
So not only did these 2 people get upset, they proved they are stupid too.
In the near future at which we quiver in anticipation, we will be living under lifetime dictatorship under the swollen orange thumb of fat trump; this as a direct result of the stupidity of the Amerikan electorate, that in turn perhaps caused by an overabundance of lead in the water supply. And one of fat trump’s stated goals, steeped of course in Wisdom, is absolute, unconditional indemnified immunity, not only for himself, but for all his ass-worshiping, boot-licking overpaid uniformed playground bullies–they know who they are! Then, our uniformed porcine over-“protectors” will enjoy the option of avoiding such judicial awards, and subsequent allocations of taxpayer funds, by simply directing a well-placed bullet into the head(s) of anyone daring to display his traffic finger in a mis-salutory manner. Our hypothetical Officer Pig will do so, knowing he enjoys absolute, unconditonal indemnified immunity surrounding his official misbehaviour, as fat trump nobly strives to “Back The Blue”, true to his word as Our Respected And Beloved Leader. Have a nice MAGA!
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“a direct result of the stupidity of the Amerikan electorate”
To some extent, yes. However, it must be pointed out that there are several major contributors to the abysmal state of affairs we presently face. Laying it all at the feet of the victims is a bit short sighted. Certainly gerrymandering and disenfranchisement played key roles in setting up our present quagmire. Corruption from home and abroad also is to blame.
I think we have seen what would happen if the electorate were to choose the better candidate. These assholes never watched Pinkie and the Brain, otherwise they would know their attempts at world domination are futile.