Verbal judo offers calm

Two veteran area police officers say you won’t necessarily find yourself under arrest for disorderly conduct if you yell at an officer.

But don’t push it.

If the altercation continues in public and you disrupt the peace — or touch an officer — you’re likely going to jail.

“Technically, it’s not illegal to cuss the police, and the disorderly conduct charge isn’t designed to keep you from yelling at us, but if someone’s being loud and disruptive in public and disturbing others, that’s when we would consider making an arrest for a disorderly conduct charge,” Assistant Seymour Police Chief Craig Hayes said Monday.

A disorderly conduct charge filed last week against a Harvard professor gained national attention when President Barack Obama entered the fray, first contending that the Cambridge, Mass., police officer “acted stupidly” and later adding that perhaps the professor had been out of line as well. The three plan to discuss the situation over a beer at the White House.

Closer to home, Lt. Mark Davis, commander of the Indiana State Police post at Seymour, said his crew of troopers regularly trains and exercise “verbal judo” to prepare for confrontations and handle them so they don’t escalate to the point of arrests being made.

“It gets tiring (listening to the abuse), but in the end they’re either getting their ticket or they’re going to jail, so we let them get their 2 cents in,” Davis said.

But there are limits.

“Now, if you touch me, that’s something different,” Davis added. “We’re got going to take someone getting in your face, but you can let them vent. You have to learn to take (the verbal abuse) in stride.”

The story out of Cambridge involves allegations of racism, as well. The professor, Henry Louis Gates Jr., is black, and the officer, Sgt. James Crowley, is white.

Hayes, who’s been an officer for 20 years, said he’s not aware of ever being accused of being racist in his dealings with the public.

Davis said in a situation such as that confronted by Crowley in Cambridge — where an officer is responding to a neighbor’s suspicion that a house is being broken into — the officers must be cautious.

“If you hurt someone’s feelings, it’s always easier to apologize later and explain what you were doing and why, especially with how it seems more police officers are getting shot and killed these days,” Davis said.

Davis, on the job for 26 years, said an officer’s reaction to verbal abuse can often depend on their experience.

“Some officers will take a little more guff than someone else, and I don’t think I have anyone here at the post who would jump the gun,” he added. “But we don’t run into some of the mess that the city might get into with fights and domestic disturbances.”

Hayes said officers need to stay calm.

“A lot of times you have to give someone a few minutes to calm down,” he said. “They’re already upset over something and then we show up in the middle of it. A majority of the time they do calm down.

“But once in a while we get someone who won’t and they just keep it up,” Hayes added. “At that point we don’t have any alternative but to make a disorderly conduct arrest and remove them from the scene.”

This year, Seymour Police Department has made 62 disorderly conduct arrests. Last year, the department made 89 for the entire year.

Hayes said it’s common for other charges to accompany disorderly conduct arrests, such as battery and alcohol-related charges.

“Quite often they result from fights, and you can have public intoxication involved,” Hayes said. “The majority of them involve fights.”