Speaking of "Cops," for the first time in a long, long while, I watched not just one but three episodes of the show the other night. With very few exceptions, I always root for the "criminal." Notice that the most common deviants busted are people only guilty of victimless crimes: Prostitution, drugs, unregistered gun ownership. Oh, and here's my favorite: Running away. "Why were you running?" the clever cop always asks. Without speaking for them, I consider running away and resisting arrest to be in the class of what Bill Anderson and Candice E. Jackson call "derivative crimes" -- "'crimes' that in themselves are fictitious concoctions; they are charges 'derived' from the alleged breaking of state laws." I would count resisting arrest since, if the police have no right to arrest you, as you've done nothing wrong, then surely you have a right to resist the injustice. And here's Will Grigg on the right to resist arrest.

Yes, on "Cops" I did see a guy arrested for trying to steal Top Ramen. But even here, the response was wholly disproportionate. He had three hundred bucks on him, probably for or from drugs. The storeowner should have been allowed the option of letting the guy go in exchange for restitution. Furthermore, there was no evidence apparent of this attempted crime, other than the store clerk's word. So once in a while, the police might confront someone who has actually committed a crime, or was about to, and yet almost always, even in such cases, the cops are way out of line.