Is It Illegal to Flip Off a Cop? What the Courts Have Actually Said

Short answer: in the United States, flipping off a police officer is not a crime by itself. Federal courts have said so more than once, in plain language. The longer answer is more interesting, and it’s worth knowing before you test it at a traffic stop.

The middle finger is speech

The First Amendment protects more than polite words. It covers gestures, including rude ones aimed at the government, and a cop is the government in a uniform. Courts treat the middle finger as expressive conduct: it says something (roughly “I don’t think much of you”), and saying unflattering things about public officials is about as protected as speech gets.

Three cases come up again and again.

Duran v. City of Douglas (9th Circuit, 1990)

Ralph Duran was a passenger in a car in Arizona. He made an obscene gesture at a police officer and yelled some profanity. The officer followed the car and pulled it over, and things went downhill from there. The appeals court sided with Duran: being rude to the police isn’t a reason to stop someone. The court said his behavior may have been disgraceful, but it wasn’t illegal, and criticizing the police is not a crime.

Swartz v. Insogna (2nd Circuit, 2013)

John Swartz was riding through a small town in upstate New York when he flipped off an officer from the passenger seat. The officer pulled the car over, and Swartz ended up arrested for disorderly conduct; the charge was later dropped. When he sued, the court put it memorably: this “ancient gesture of insult” is not grounds for reasonable suspicion of a traffic violation or of any crime.

Cruise-Gulyas v. Minard (6th Circuit, 2019)

Debra Cruise-Gulyas was pulled over for speeding in Michigan. The officer was kind enough to write her a ticket for a lesser violation. As she drove off, she gave him the finger. He pulled her over again and changed the ticket to the original speeding charge. The court ruled against the officer. Judge Jeffrey Sutton’s opinion said, in effect, that fits of rudeness or ingratitude may break the Golden Rule, but they don’t make a person punishable, and they aren’t grounds to stop someone.

So you’re completely safe?

Not quite. These are the ways it still goes wrong:

• The gesture is protected; everything around it isn’t. Add a threat, step toward the officer, or block traffic to make your point, and you’re no longer just expressing an opinion.
• A real violation is still a real violation. If you’re speeding, have a broken taillight or rolled the stop sign, the officer can pull you over for that, finger or no finger.
• Getting arrested and getting convicted are two different things. Swartz was right, and he was still arrested. Being right in an appeals court years later doesn’t get you that afternoon back.
• Outside the US, all bets are off. Several countries, including Germany, treat insulting gestures toward officials as an offense and fine people for it.

The bottom line

In the US, flipping off a cop is legal, rude and usually a bad use of your afternoon. The courts have your back on the principle. The officer may not, at least not that day.

If you’d rather make the point without a traffic stop, a shirt does it quietly and all day long. The middle finger shirt collection has the gesture covered, from Johnny Cash at San Quentin to a skeleton hand with one finger for everybody. And if you want the backstory, here’s how the middle finger started, about 2,400 years before the first police car.