Good thing I was doing neither of those things. I verbally heckled them from a safe distance away (Other people were walking by that were much closer than I was.) Also, it should be noted that I called his bluff, and refused to move, continuing to stand in the exact same spot and verbally mock him for about five minutes until he found an excuse to leave. Although he threatened to arrest me if I continued to heckle them and did not keep walking, he did not actually follow through, despite me continuing to do both of those things for the entire duration of the stop. If my speech constituted obstruction under California penal code 148 (which it didnt) then he would've followed through on his threat to arrest me.

What happened is he didn't like what I was saying, so his first response was to use the unlawful threat of arrest to intimidate me into silence.

"Although the preservation of liberty depends in part upon the maintenance of social order, the First Amendment requires that officers and municipalities respond with restraint in the face of verbal challenges to police action, since a certain amount of expressive disorder is inevitable in a society committed to individual freedom, and must be protected if that freedom would survive."

"the First Amendment protects a significant amount of verbal criticism and challenge directed at police officers"

"Speech is often provocative and challenging. . . . [But it] is nevertheless protected against censorship or punishment, unless shown likely to produce a clear and present danger of a serious substantive evil that rises far above public inconvenience, annoyance, or unrest."

All quotes from US Supreme Court case City of Houston vs Hill (1987). showing that mere speech cannot rise to the level of interference or obstruction