A suburban Oregon police department is paying a local man $4,000 to settle a civil rights lawsuit in which he claimed he was pulled over for flipping off the cops in traffic. Twice he saluted with his middle finger while driving, and was pulled over each time by a Clackamas County patrol officer, resulting in what he said was a tongue lashing and “bogus” citations that were later dismissed. He sued (.pdf) in March.
“It was just time to settle,” the plaintiff, Robert Ekas, said in a brief telephone interview Thursday. The retired Silicon Valley systems analyst declined to elaborate.
Edward McGlone III, the counsel for Clackamas County, just outside Portland, said the local government settled (.pdf) rather than litigate for “business reasons.”
“It was just cheaper than proceeding in the case at this point,” he added. McGlone, too, declined to elaborate.
There’s no law against directing to police what might be the world’s oldest insulting gesture. But it’s not advised, as it may lead to a confrontation.
In a March interview, however, Ekas told us that he performed the middle-finger salute to the cops because “it seemed like the right thing to do.” He said it was a form of protest against a department he claimed was abusing its citizenry.
The settlement comes a year after a Pittsburgh man was awarded $50,000 after he was wrongly cited for disorderly conduct after flipping off a cop.
For an authoritative legal and historical discussion of flipping the bird, read “Digitus Impudicus: the Middle Finger and the Law. (.pdf)