I Await My Life Sentence

Police charge woman who shouted profanities at overflowing toilet:

Dawn Herb faces up to three months in jail and a $300 fine if she's convicted of using foul language inside her Scranton, Pa., residence.

"The toilet was overflowing and leaking down into the kitchen and I was yelling (for my daughter) to get the mop," she said, according to The Times-Tribune. "A guy is yelling, 'Shut the [expletive] up,' and I yelled back, 'Mind your own business.'"

Except the dude, her next-door neighbor, was an off-duty cop, and he decided to get all "asshole cop fuck you" about it and called the (on-duty?) police, who then charged her with disorderly conduct.

"It doesn't make any sense. I was in my house. It's not like I was outside or drunk," Herb, a mother of four, told the paper. "A cop can charge you with disorderly conduct for disrespecting them?"

Yep. That's what Patrolman Gerald Tallo seemed to think when he wrote the ticket. "At the end of the day, the opinion that counts is of the magisterial judge," Public Safety Director Ray Hayes told the paper.

Luckily, Ms. Herb lives in Scranton, not Philly—where Judge Deni would undoubtedly have sentenced her to death by lethal injection.

Btw, the Philly ACLU chapter says that swearing isn't a criminal offense. (Gee, really?) Also that they have to "bring one of these cases a year and sue some police departments because they do not remember that they are not the language police."

It's always the big tough guys with the delicate sensibilities, isn't it?