A police officer who saw an automobile passenger flash a middle finger at him did not have reasonable suspicion for a traffic stop, a federal appeals court has ruled in reinstating a civil rights suit against two upstate officers.
“Perhaps there is a police officer somewhere who would interpret an automobile passenger’s giving him the finger as a signal of distress, creating a suspicion that something occurring in the automobile warranted investigation,” Judge Jon Newman (See Profile) of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit wrote in Swartz v. Insogna,11-2846-cv. “And perhaps that interpretation is what prompted [the officer] to act, as he claims. But the nearly universal recognition that this gesture is an insult deprives such an interpretation of reasonableness. This ancient gesture of insult is not the basis for a reasonable suspicion of a traffic violation or impending criminal activity.”
