![woman yelling at cops ACLU: Pa. Police [Wrongfully] Cite Hundreds Just for Cursing](http://girldujour.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/woman-yelling-at-cops.jpg "ACLU: Pa. Police [Wrongfully] Cite Hundreds Just for Cursing")
I found this article and had to post it here. It seems that not only is flipping off cops and swearing at them ‘legal,’ but even profitable at times. Though we don’t recommend it.
By MaryClaire Dale – associated press
Pennsylvania police wrongly charged hundreds of people with disorderly conduct for swearing, the American Civil Liberties Union said in a pair of free-speech lawsuits filed Wednesday.
ACLU lawyers reviewed 770 disorderly conduct citations issued by Pennsylvania State Police in a recent one-year span. They said they found that while officers applied the law correctly in some cases, the majority involved profanities and other legal, nonobscene speech.
The lawsuits’ plaintiffs are a pizza delivery driver briefly jailed for cursing at a local officer over a parking ticket and a Luzerne County woman cited by state police for hurling a derogatory name at a swerving motorcyclist.
Pennsylvania’s disorderly conduct statute carries a possible 90-day jail term and $300 fine. The woman paid $1,500 to fight the ticket, while the deliveryman lost $560 in wages and had to pay a $75 towing fee, the suits state.
“You absolutely cannot cite someone just for uttering a profanity,” said ACLU lawyer Marieke Tuthill.
The problem is ultimately a lack of police training, most likely because officers misunderstand “the difference between the colloquial definition of obscenity and the legal definition of obscenity,” she said.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court follows U.S. Supreme Court holdings on obscenity, which refers to speech that is more violent, graphic and sexual than the seven dirty words of George Carlin fame, Tuthill said.
State police had not yet seen the lawsuit and had no immediate response, said Lt. Myra Taylor, a spokeswoman.
Matthew Walters admits he was already having a bad day on Dec. 19, 2008, as he helped with deliveries at his friend’s pizza shop in northeastern Pennsylvania. His car had gotten stuck earlier in the snow piled by the curb, so he double-parked with his hazard lights blinking as he waited inside the store for his next order. After about 10 minutes, he looked out and saw Mahanoy City Officer Christopher Zubris writing him a ticket.
“Using words of his own choosing, including profanity, Mr. Walters expressed his dismay with his local law enforcement official,” his suit states.
More than a year later, Walters seems mostly embarrassed at being arrested in front of the business, as customers came and went. But he also believes the case points to a bigger problem.
“You can’t be arrested for saying that to an officer,” the 31-year-old plumber told The Associated Press. “I could see if you’re out of line, threatening them. I didn’t do anything like that. It was clear-cut. I said what I said, and he said ‘You’re arrested.’”
Mahanoy City Police Chief Mark Wiekrykas has not yet seen Walters’ lawsuit. However, he said he has told his officers in the borough, which has fewer than 5,000 residents, about the evolving case law on what constitutes disorderly conduct.
In Pennsylvania alone, the city of Scranton in 2008 agreed to pay a woman $19,000 plus legal costs after she was charged for swearing at her overflowing toilet. The city of Pittsburgh paid $50,000 last year to settle a free-speech lawsuit filed by a man cited for an obscene gesture. In that case, the ACLU found city police had written 188 disorderly conduct citations over a 32-month period for swearing, gestures and other disrespectful conduct.
Not all cases involve profanities tossed at police. In the second suit filed Wednesday, Lona Scarpa said she was cited after contacting police to report that a motorcycle rider had tried to run her down as she walked with a friend. When state police investigated, they said if they charged him, they would have to charge her as well for the string of epithets she uttered as he rode off.
Both Walters and Scarpa were acquitted of the disorderly conduct. Their suits allege retaliation by police because they exercised their First Amendment rights.
The state police citations reviewed as part of Scarpa’s suit include “a really, really creative, colorful rainbow of curse words,” Tuthill said.
She did not notice any geographic or other patterns emerge in the complaints, which spanned the commonwealth.
“They’re kind of funny to read through, actually,” she said.
Check this out.
CHARGED FOR SWEARING AT AN OVERFLOWING TOILET? WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK! WHAT IS WRONG WITH LAW ENFORCEMENT?!?!?!
I would neaver put down all police because I know there are some great police out there, who put there lives on the line to protect and serve me and my family, but recently I have been attacked with false fines from my local police station in the great luzerne county, I am highly annoyed with the way things are handled by the police in this county and wish it would be looked into, I feel corruption all around me, I have been threatened on several ocassions by these police In this town and its scary to know they can get away with it makes me sick.
Tonyia – it’s not just you. The whole world is full of corruption, especially in these authorities.
On Oct 28 I was arrested for calling one of my neighbors a bitch. Now this is her story. What I said with leaf blower running was”Oh no junky princess!” to my husband as he was leaving. She is. According to the retired police chief a burnt out one. The cops some up to me and say they are going arrest me. They ask for ID and Im say I need to go into house. I go in the back door, they are in the front and can see me thru storm door. I let dogs out back for safe keeping. I grab a cigarette, then call PA SP who say”We don’t like to interfere.” Duh? I call my husband[I could almost literally hear his jaw drop]. Then I call the mayor and wait this invertebrate to step up to the plate. Do your job? Handle this? Be a man? Ahem. Next thing I know these two geniuses come to the back door, taze the dogs, get to the door and as I am watching the door knob the lock is unlocking! Officer Bumpky has a burglar tool. Is that why all these “bags of evidence” left my house? As in chicken wings, pounds of bacon, steaks, shrimp!? Never took the liver, the chicken breasts, the salmon…? Well after O Bumpky gets in he grabs me[I still have the bloody shirt], throws the phone down and breaks it and I dump the cigarette from my lips into the dog’s water bowl. After this type of irrational behavior on the part of these cops I wasn’t taking any chances. My house would have burned down and they would have tried to say it was my fault. The teapot was still going at 9PM when my husband brought me back. When one leaves their home don’t they usually try to make sure that everything is OK? I do. Next thing you know they are saying resisting arrest. If it was a standoff why wasn’t it handled within those parameters?
I wanted to comment that in PA they allow people to practice law who are not even lawyers, for example the Magistrate Judges who took a 6 week course at Widener and they allow them to hand out these summary verdicts when they are not even lawyers. Needless to say one convicted me then I took it all the way to common pleas without a lawyer this time, for that I feel deals are made all the time, and I primarily do not trust lawyers. I feel they have to play the game and exchange deals with these cops . In addition before my case was dismissmed when I appealed it without a lawyer, the lawyer said I should take a disorderly conduct instead of harrassment. I knew what did he really know that I did not. The police officers that brought this charge showed up all 6 of them on overtime we pay for….for a telephone call. A call made to my daughter to give her the opportunity to retireve all of her things she left behind. No language, no argument, just a call. An angry kid that she is because the first time in her life I did not like her loser boyfriend she decides to use the police to get back at her parents. i got a harrassment charge from this local yocal asshole police department who obviously did not like the fact that I did not bend over for them. The district attorney still tried to fight this charge, embisiles that he was, even though it smelled of obvious retailation from the pilice department because i sent a letter to the borough town manager over their departments harrassment to me over this issue. One of the officers replied to me that the chief came in when he felt like it and these are professional police? PA is wacko and the police deparmtnents get a high on this power thing and unless citizens fight back and tell them to just do their jobs that WE pay them for this is not going to stop. Then they wonder why poor innocent police officers get shot. They need to be held accountable or hit the unemployment line!!!!!
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