>What 'debt' is saying is that it was a stupid reaction to getting stopped for a red light violation

Besides getting stopped for a traffic violation he was asked to provide something that was not mandatory by law. Even worse, the policemen cited the law wrongly (and for something quite basic). This is indefensible.

But that's beside the point. I take offense with the notion against his "stupid reaction" in general.

What this talk about "stupid reaction" reveals is a citizenry that is conditioned to receive all kinds of abuse from police officers and to blindly obey orders, to avoid getting on their nerves.

He should be allowed to have any kind of "stupid reaction". He should be allowed to voice his protests and discuss the matter without being hailed to jail. There's nothing "throw him in jail" about "trying to educate a police officer".

In every country with a civilized police force (at least in Western Europe), that is in any country where police is catering to citizens and not barking at peasants, you CAN have all kind of "stupid reactions" when talking to the police and you don't get beaten or thrown in jail for it (at least not as a regular occurence -- it might happen from time to time).

That you can casually get shot for reaching for your mobile phone or tased just because you said something to protest being asked to leave some place, is something that just does not happen.

Even the "hands on the dashboard" and "don't get out of the car when pulled over or you'll might get shot" routines are unheard of.

Perhaps it's time to demand more courtesy from the police, instead of taking for granted having to be all too cautious whenever they appear.

My bad, there was an explanation of the way the law worked in this case and for some reason I thought it was in our thread (and I was talking under the assumption that you had seen it too).

> He should be allowed to voice his protests and discuss the matter without being hailed to jail

"while according to the New York Civil Liberties Union, you are not legally required to carry ID, they say "Lastly, an officer cannot write you a summons if you do not provide i.d; instead he must arrest you. That means that if you are stopped for a violation such as loitering and do not provide i.d., you will be arrested"

He wasn't arrested as punishment, but as policy (they can't just write you a ticket if there's no way to identify you on a bike). There are cases of polices taking people at their word that they give the correct name, but for obvious reasons that's a courtesy. This re-casts the story from "police spitefully violate the law in response to shit-talking" to "police (spitefully) refuse to extend voluntary courtesy and instead go by the book, in response to shit-talking".

Now obviously the way he was treated _after_ arrest was an abuse of the system, and there are no arguments here about that. But 'debt' is correct in that you shouldn't expect to be rude to someone and then turn around and demand that they violate by-the-book law to do you a favor.

As far as the rest of your comment, I really feel pretty much the exact same way; I just don't think it contradicts the advice given by 'debt'.

It's very easy to sit at your computer and say these things. But once you've been in solitary for no real reason, for hours and hours, with no knowledge of when you're going to get out, your opinion changes about how you should deal with police. I had the same experience. Give us your ID! I declined reasonably, stating my states law on the matter. They then started harassing me, pushing me around. "You don't have any rights." etc. Taken to county, solitary for 18 hours. I'd like to avoid that in the future.