Adverse circumstances and heated verbal attacks by angry citizens sometimes triggers a (natural) response on the part of police officers to respond in kind, or, at the extreme, with verbal abuse in the form of threats to use their lawful powers of arrest for intimidation purposes where, in fact, any such use of arrest powers is unlawful under the given circumstances.

Typical examples with potential to trigger verbal abuse by police would include responding to members of the public who are indeed complying with a lawful order to disperse, or to vacate a specific area, but who do so while expressing their verbal disagreement or displeasure with the officer's command. They may even choose to insult the officer personally, but provided their actions do not constitute a threat to the officer or a refusal to obey his lawful orders, and as long as their manner of expression does not constitute a violation of any specific statute, the officer may not respond in a manner that is abusive, or by purposely intimidating the subject. Verbal and psychological abuse by police of this kind may also arise in the context of their interactions with persons in their lawful custody.

Ordinarily, verbal and psychological abuse is among the more difficult types of police abuse allegations to substantiate in a way that gives rise to penalties outside of agency reprimands, because behavior that is strictly verbal is open to subjective interpretation and because, except in the most extreme situations, does not violate specific laws or constitutional principles in and of itself. The most significant exception, however, is where the verbal or psychological abuse takes places under circumstances where they also violate the subjects civil rights.

Civil Rights Violations:

Title 42 U.S.C.1983 ("Section 1983") prohibits anyone (including police officers) from depriving anyone subject to U.S. jurisdiction of "any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws of the Unites States (Scmalleger 1997).

Accordingly, where police conduct is influenced or motivated by racial animus or any other discriminatory policy, Section 1983 entitles the aggrieved party to civil damages from the officer...

For example, a police officer who merely issues polite verbal instructions allowing some members of the public access to restricted areas while politely denying other individuals similar access by virtue of their race or any other class of constitutionally protected identity does so in violation of Section 1983. Civil rights violations in policing may also arise in the ordinary course of routine policing situations such as traffic stops and otherwise lawful requests for field interviews or for identifying information. Before the implementation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it was not uncommon for police officer in predominantly white neighborhoods to approach and question any black person observed on the street. Where there are other circumstances justifying their interest in interviewing a subject, or where race is a component of a physical description of a criminal suspect in the area, police may lawfully question and demand identification of any person reasonably raising their suspicion of criminal involvement (Geeting 2005).
However, the practice of doing so by virtue of impermissible criteria (such as race), renders otherwise appropriate police investigatory procedure violative of constitutionally protected civil rights. Ultimately, civil rights abuse by police is the most sensitive and dangerous type of unlawful police action, because it applies to conduct that is permissible in the same circumstances except for the personal motivation of the officer.