The “media frenzy” – as President Obama called it – over Sgt. James Crowley’s arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. needs to become more than a “teachable moment,” in the president’s phrase. But not only about interactions among blacks and white police. Widely overlooked in this frenzy is a constitutional lesson. Is there a law forbidding angry nonviolent speech directed at a police officer?

John Timoney, Miami’s police chief, is a hard-line, law-and-order cop whom I’ve criticized for his mass arrest of nonviolent protesters – when he was police chief in Philadelphia – without a flicker of probable cause. But I respect what he told Maureen Dowd of The New York Times (July 26) about Gates’ arrest:

“There’s a fine line between disorderly conduct and freedom of speech. It can get tough out there, but I tell my officers, ‘Don’t make matters worse by throwing handcuffs on someone. Bite your tongue ...’”

Moreover, as Ronald Hampton, executive director of the National Black Police Association, said after the handcuffing of Henry Louis Gates: “Black men’s experience with law enforcement in this country is very different than that experience of whites” (National Public Radio, July 24).

In July of last year, a New York Times/CBS News poll asked: “Have you ever felt you were stopped by the police just because of your race or ethnic background?” Yes, said 66 percent of black men. Also responding affirmatively were 9 percent of white men (New York Times, July 24).