Here. In places it’s pretty hard on cops in general, but I agree with a lot of it, especially this part:

The conversation we ought to be having in response to the July 16 incident and its heated aftermath isn’t about race, it’s about police arrest powers, and the right to criticize armed agents of the government.
By any account of what happened — Gates’, Crowleys’, or some version in between — Gates should never have been arrested. “Contempt of cop,” as it’s sometimes called, isn’t a crime. Or at least it shouldn’t be. It may be impolite, but mouthing off to police is protected speech, all the more so if your anger and insults are related to a perceived violation of your rights. The “disorderly conduct” charge for which Gates was arrested was intended to prevent riots, not to prevent cops from enduring insults.

One interesting debate that’s come out of this incident concerns how deferential one should be (regardless of whether it’s illegal) to police who are, in one’s view, out of line. Balko and Jonathan Last seem to be of the opinion that defiance is a good idea in some cases. Balko makes the (legitimate) point that when police (illegally) instruct you to stop filming them, turning off your camera can keep you from collecting important evidence.

But I’m a little less convinced by the line Last takes. For example, when Mark Steyn wrote this:

I certainly sympathize with the general proposition that not all encounters with the constabulary go as agreeably as one might wish. Last year I had a minor interaction with a Vermont state trooper and, 60 seconds into the conversation, he called me a “liar.” I considered my options:
Option a): I could get hot under the collar, yell at him, get tasered into submission, and possibly shot while “resisting arrest”;
Option b): I could politely tell the trooper I object to his characterization, and then write a letter to the commander of his barracks the following morning suggesting that such language is not appropriate to routine encounters with members of the public and betrays a profoundly defective understanding of the relationship between law-enforcement officials and the citizenry in civilized societies.
I chose the latter course, and received a letter back offering partial satisfaction and explaining that the trooper would be receiving “supervisory performance-related issue-counseling,” which, with any luck, is even more ghastly than it sounds and hopefully is still ongoing.

Last responded — after cutting the quote off after “the latter”:

What strikes me here is how analogous this response is to how the left viewed the Danish Mohammed-cartoon crisis. Sure, they said, free speech is nice in theory. But it’s rude to purposefully provoke another religion. And when Muslims the world over riot and kill people well–what do you expect? That’s just what they do. Better to keep your voice down, make nice, and never offend them.
Substitute “cops” for “Muslims” and you have the conservative position on police misconduct.

I don’t think the analogy really holds up. No one is saying that one should simply let police do whatever they want, and never make waves. The argument is that while you’re one-on-one with an armed officer, it’s probably best to keep your mouth shut. (This is probably good advice for those who are one-on-one with armed terrorists as well.) The time to get angry and provocative is after the fact, when you can (with a lawyer if necessary) speak with police officials on an even playing field.