TRUMBULL COUNTY Ordinance targets verbal abuse of police officers

The law director believes the ordinance would violate the First Amendment.
By DENISE DICK
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- Mouth off to a cop and you could end up in handcuffs.
A city councilman is researching whether a city ordinance can be passed to prohibit verbal abuse of police officers or using profane language to police officers in encounters where it could escalate a tense situation.
Councilman Robert L. Dean Jr., D-at large, said the legislation would have to pay heed to the U.S. Constitution's First and 14th amendments.
"It may be possible, but it would have to be narrowly tailored," Dean said, likening it to prohibitions against yelling "fire" in a crowded theater.
Greg Hicks, law director, said he told Dean the law department would look into the idea but added he believes it would violate First Amendment protections of free speech.
David Hudson, a research attorney at the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., said U.S. Supreme Court precedent sets pretty high hurdles for prohibition against derogatory language toward police officers.
Put a limit on it
Courts have limited the scope to fighting words, Hudson said.
In 1987, the U.S. Supreme Court wrote that fighting words are those that "by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace ... ." The justices also wrote in their ruling that "the First Amendment protects a significant amount of verbal criticism and challenge directed at police officers."
Courts also have ruled that police officers should be held to a higher standard of restraining themselves because they're trained to resist, Hudson said.
The city of Norwalk, in Huron County in northern Ohio, with a population of about 16,000, passed an ordinance last month making it a minor misdemeanor for someone to verbally abuse or make derogatory remarks to police officers in the performance of their duties.
That city's ordinance says such behavior is "harmful to the harmonious administration of the law, and increases the likelihood of violence or passioned reaction which may result in harm to either the individual or officers involved."
How this came about
Dean said encounters such as one that occurred last month on Mercer Avenue spawned the idea.
Police say a juvenile yelled profanities at them and refused to provide his name when asked.
Police said the boy continued to yell vulgarities. He was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. The situation escalated, with two of the boy's siblings and his mother also hauled to jail.
Dean, who wasn't with police during the Mercer Avenue episode, has been riding along with police officers for several months.
He said he's seen people grabbing their crotches as police drive by and yelling obscenities.
"That's simply disrespect," Dean said, adding, however, that he recognizes such speech is constitutionally protected.
denise_dick@vindy.com