KENOSHA, Wis. – “Watch your mouth” may take on a new urgency for residents of Kenosha, Wis., if one city alderman has his way.Patrick Juliana said he was inspired to strengthen the city’s ordinance banning “profane, vile, filthy or obscene” language after spending a night with local police officers. Now he wants to give cops and firefighters the authority to issue $118 tickets to people who swear at them.
According to Juliana, foul language can be intimidating to public safety personnel who are just trying to do their jobs. In addition, what he called “descriptive adjectives with dangling predicates” can incite others nearby to join in the fracas, Juliana said.
The proposed ordinance has the backing of the city’s Public Safety and Welfare Committee and would represent a change from current law in that no third party would need to be offended to trigger a citation.
“When the message is on the street that [cursing at public safety employees] is not tolerated, it will make their jobs easier,” Juliana, who said he has the support of the local police chief, told the Kenosha News.
Alderwoman Kathy Carpenter would like to take Juliana’s proposal a step farther and add offensive gestures to the list of actionable offenses, but Alderman Michael Orth told the newspaper he is worried the proposed ordinance may backfire.
“Police officers have to be very adamant in some situations, and I don’t want this to boomerang back where some punk thug files a complaint against a police officer because their feelings got hurt,” Orth said.
Or, perhaps, against an elected official who referred to unruly citizens as “knobs,” as Alderman Jesse Downing did during council’s discussion of the proposed ordinance. “Knob” is slang for penis.
Rank-and-file citizens, speaking anonymously to a local television news broadcast and the Kenosha News indicated they thought the change in the ordinance unnecessary. Several mentioned suspecting the ordinance would do more to fatten the city’s coffers than deter foul language directed at police or anyone else.
There’s also the matter of First Amendment rights to consider.
“This ordinance is plainly unconstitutional,” said American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin Legal Director Larry Dupuis. “As far back as 1974, the Supreme Court struck down a nearly identical ordinance that made it illegal to ‘curse or revile or to use obscene or opprobrious language toward or with reference to any member of the city police.’”
In that case, Lewis v. City of New Orleans, the decision noted “the freedom of individuals verbally to oppose or challenge police action without thereby risking arrest is one of the principal characteristics by which we distinguish a free nation from a police state.”
In a 1971 case, Cohen v. California, the Supreme Court struck down the disorderly conduct conviction of a man who wore a “Fuck the Draft” T-shirt inside a courthouse.
“In America, we don’t have ‘speech police’ deciding what language is appropriate,” Dupuis said.
The City Council is scheduled to vote on the proposed ordinance Sept. 7.
