The Right To Be A Jerk

And there is a whole string of cases in which the courts have found that people who said things much worse to police officers than Cox did had a First Amendment right to do so. In one, Ford v. City of Newport News, the accused "was so loud and boisterous that apartment dwellers in a nearby building came out on their porch and asked if the officers needed help." Yet the court found no basis for a disorderly-conduct charge.