Quote:If you were whooshing any harder, we'd need an airbag for you to land on. Let's make this really simple and see if we can’t get something to stick:


I am driving and I see a SWAT van. I flip the driver off. The van turns on its lights and pulls me over. Members of the team approach my vehicle with assault rifles to give me a piece of their minds.


At what point do we venture from "reasonable interaction" to "dangerous abuse of power" and "intimidation"?

 

At no point would it be a reasonable interaction for any LEO to pull you over for the finger.  I'm saying that any reasonable person should know, at least I hope you would, that if you are going to be a jerk and flick off a cop that there is a chance that they will find a legal reason to pull you over.  In this case, it was probably an illegal seizure, regardless if it was SWAT or Officer Friendly.  You are trying to dig your heels in the sand and draw your red line here of a single instance to prove police in America are militarized and its ambiguous at best for you.  How many times have you or anyone you know or anyone who knows anyone you know been pulled over by a SWAT truck and had their rights suspended?  It just doesn't happen.  Trying to debate the merits of RS for a single traffic stop as proof of police militarization is absurd.

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