GALVESTON COUNTY, TX — When in Rome, do as the Romans. When in Galveston County, TX, don’t talk like a ranch hand — at least not in public.A La Marque resident and a Galveston tourist got object lessons in the power of language when they were arrested in separate incidents after speaking variants of the “F” word in public places.
In mid-March, Abraham Urquizo, 35, of Jamaica, NY, was taken into custody at a popular Mexican restaurant overlooking the Gulf of Mexico after he twice dropped an F-bomb while arguing with his girlfriend. He was cited for disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor.
“I can’t believe you’re so fucking stupid,” Urquizo reportedly told the young woman. “What the fuck were you thinking?”
A Galveston police officer seated nearby overheard the conversation and took Urquizo outside to warn him about his language. The restaurant’s manager, who claimed also to have heard the altercation, said he was offended and asked the officer “to do something,” according to police department spokesman Lt. D.J. Alvarez.
Urquizo pleaded no contest and received a sentence of time served.
The previous August, a Wal-Mart shopper in La Marque was arrested for using the word to express her frustration about a dearth of hurricane-survival supplies at the store. Her case is scheduled for trial May 1st.
“They’re all fucking gone,” Kathryn Fridge, 28, reportedly told her mother when the women found the store’s supply of batteries depleted as they attempt to stock up ahead of Tropical Storm Edouard’s approach.
A La Marque assistant fire marshal who also is a certified peace officer overheard the conversation and told Fridge to “watch [her] mouth,” she told The Houston Chronicle.
When Fridge suggested the fire marshal butt out of a private conversation, he escorted her outside and ticketed her for disorderly conduct.
Both incidents have First Amendment advocates wagging their fingers at law enforcement. Criminalizing word choices, except in extreme cases, has been held by the courts to be unconstitutional, according to South Texas College of Law Associate Dean T. Gerald Treece.
In order to trigger official action, the spoken word must “excite violence or an immediate disruption, where people feel they are forced to leave or not participate in an activity,” Treece told the Chronicle.
In Urquizo’s case, “rather than arrest the customer, the appropriate response would have been for the manager to ask him to leave the premises,” Treece told the Chronicle. “That was within the manager’s rights. But the government should not make the call.”
According to La Marque Fire Chief Todd Zacheri, Fridge cursed the fire marshal and everyone else present, creating a scene and causing “a huge group” of other shoppers to gather.
Under Texas law, the use of “abusive, indecent, profane or vulgar language” in public constitutes an “immediate breach of the peace.”
