SCRANTON, PA—Don’t swear at your toilet when it’s overflowing and let your neighbor hear you or you’ll be arrested for disorderly conduct, especially if your neighbor is a police officer.
Dawn Herb of Scranton is facing up to 90 days in jail and a $300 fine for shouting profanities at her toilet as it was overflowing and leaking down into the kitchen about 8 p.m. last Thursday.
Herb said that the bathroom window was open and says she doesn’t remember exactly what she said as she was trying to battle the mess and yelling for her daughter to get the mop but that she was frustrated as she stood in her bathroom.
She said she heard some guy yelling to “shut the f— up” and that she responded by telling him to “mind your own business”. The guy was apparently her neighbor, Patrick Gilman who is an police officer. He called police and Herb, the mother of four children, was charged with disorderly conduct, accused of “using obscene language or gestures with intent to cause public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm or recklessly (creating) a risk.
However, usually in order to sustain a charge of disorderly conduct, the incident must happen in the public. Herb was inside her residence and was not intentionally directing any verbiage in the public arena. She said she had no previous arrests.
