Only in America: The right to flip the bird
A New York man sues (and wins) after getting arrested for flipping off a cop — and more in our collection of strange revelations about the nation


Upstate New York resident Joshua Swartz was pulled over and arrested after he gave a cop the middle finger at a traffic intersection in 2006. Now, nearly seven years later, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit has overturned a lower court's decision and dropped all charges against Swartz. The decision "reaffirms that just because you insult a police officer, [it] doesn't give that police officer the right to detain you or arrest you and take away your liberty," attorney Elmer Robert Keach III told the AP.
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Samantha Rollins is TheWeek.com's news editor. She has previously worked for The New York Times and TIME and is a graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.
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