The police stop people on bicycles regularly. I know because I have done it. Riding a bike on a street at night with no lights is illegal, and it's unsafe. I would stop that person 9 times out of 10. I might not give him a ticket, but I will stop them. Couple that with trying to evade and you go to jail.Pinkycatcher wrote: But the guy robbing the house would have been caught whether or not he was yelling communist speech, this guy was arrested because he said these words, do you seriously believe a police officer would stop someone just biking by if they said nothing in this same situation? No they would not have, you can argue it til the cows come home, but there are very few officers who are going to do that. This arrest was solely because of his speech, if he would have garnered the attention of the officers in a different way, without insulting them, they would have nearly always let him go with a warning at most, they would not have ticketed him. So yes, he was arrested for his speech.
And to say if he would have kept his "ducks in a row" he would not have gotten a ticket is a fallacy, there are thousand upon thousands of petty infractions that exist, and there's a near 100% chance any given person is breaking at least one of them while doing anything. So if it wern't for these problems, they could have found more.
It's interesting that so many people know these officers were just wasting peoples time, or their egos were hurt, etc. I know nothing more about this situation than what I read in the article, and I will not make up facts to support one side or the other. Maybe the cop was a jerk, who knows, but based on the info in the article it's pretty clear the CHL holder drew unwanted attention to himself while breaking multiple laws.