Court Rules Yelling At Teens Was Crime

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Court Rules Yelling At Teens Was Crime

HELENA (AP) – Allison Chapman was fed up that night, fed up with teenagers routinely driving the streets of Geraldine playing loud music on their car stereos into the late hours.

But his attempt to discourage the practice was disorderly conduct, for which he was rightly convicted, the Montana Supreme Court has ruled.

A five-judge panel said Tuesday that Chapman’s effort to disperse a carfull of teens from a public road in front of his house by shouting at them to get out of his town was a crime. Chapman was wrong in arguing that no one’s peace was disturbed by his actions, the court said. Chapman, 38, assailed the high court’s decision as depriving him of his constitutional right to free speech.

"They’re saying we don’t have any constitutional rights – we can’t say anything; we have to watch everything we say," he said Wednesday. "If you say anything that anybody at all takes any offense at, you’re guilty."

Read the story here.

I don’t know what to think of this. First, I know what it is like to have teenagers driving by my house in the middle of the night with bass-heavy music thumping the pictures off my wall. I know it all too well. Actually, when that behavior first came on the scene, around 1989 or so, I was in the thick of it. My ex-brother-in-law and another good friend both installed competition car stereos. I loved it. I had a few cars that the sound was louder than a jackhammer.

In fact, I fought against an ordinance in, I think, 1990 at City Hall to make it illegal to have a loud car stereo. At least one played loud. I argued that at least the teenagers and young adults were not spending money to make their cars go 175MPH, with loud exhausts. Ten years before, it was people driving 80MHP though residential neighborhoods. And which would you rather have, a loud car stereo disturbing you for ten seconds, which is pretty harmless, or some idiot flying down your street at 80?

I both won and lost. They did pass the ordinance, but they made it for only after 11:00 PM. I thought that was fair and right.

But the above case if not really about the loud boom-cars. It is about a man yelling at the teens. Perhaps he could have handled it better than he did, and perhaps the teens’ parents could figure out what was going on if their teens’ cars have those loud boom speakers in them.

Go read the article, and post your thoughts below.