When your riding in a city you don't always have options when it comes to where your handlebars will fit, I have been nearly doored a few times like this. The fact is that acts like this are random and unpredictable, especially for the cyclist. There is a lot of times little to no warning and sometimes you just don't have any other options when you are moving around cars. With that being said it is far more about what happens POST incident then the incident itself. Its the reactions of both the cyclist and driver/passenger that matters and what is done. The best situation is not to turn it into an argument, an admittedly hard thing when there is adrenaline coursing through both parties.
In this case though judging by the story the police were clearly intimidating the cyclist. That is more of the issue here. If this had happened and both parties remained cool headed, filed an accident report and gone on their way and chalked it up to "**** happens" then everything is fine. We don't know the whole story though, what did the cyclist say, was he antagonistic?
I have had police get upset when cyclists right fully take the lane which is technically "legal", and I have had far fewer police get upset when a cyclist rolls through a red light directly in front of them. There is very selective enforcement of rules from my experience and in general the view is that cyclists are treated with a more 'de facto' approach then a 'de jury' approach.