Stupidity doesn't end with holidays. It may even be intensified. A guy in Pennsylvania (PA) swapped his jailhouse stripes for a real, orange, jail jumpsuit after being arrested on Halloween. He chose the costume of an inmate to celebrate the holiday--a choice that proved foreshadowing after he also chose to toss insults at police officers who nabbed him on a weapons charge.
When you've got a friend who goes by the nickname of "Jinx" maybe that's a sign of who not to hang out with on Halloween, or perhaps any day.
Cops arrested a guy from Pennsylvania -- dressed in a jail inmate costume -- on a weapons charge, after police responded and physically arrived to arrest the man's friend. Officers say the unrelated guy allegedly insulted police. While it may not be technically illegal to insult police, that doesn't mean the decision is wise. A citizen may find himself arrested under categories or charges like "common assault," obstruction, public mischief, breach of peace -- or even obscenity charges. Police in Pennsylvania have kind of an odd background with alleged insults made toward cops. In 1998, PA cops fined a local woman twenty-five bucks for yelling "Fuck you!" while allegedly flipping off a flag worker. That charge and outcome was reversed In 2000 when the state Supreme Court reversed the imposed fine -- issuing statement that the gesture could not be considered obscene or violate obscenity law required by state law. The ruling: "It would be a rare person who would be turned on by the display of a middle finger or the language it represents."
Even if cops don't press vaguely-related charges for insulting an officer, it could actually get far worse -- as 22-year-old Gregory Moon discovered the hard way.
He was apparently hanging out at a housing project when he decided to yell at arriving police officers who were responding to a separate and unrelated matter concerning his friend. Ironically, police were only called out to the apartment to investigate a minor matter of a complaint that a car was stuck in the front of the residence. But cops ended up arresting the friend, James "Jinx" Law, after law enforcement says he fought with cops -- the friend's actions making Moon's attempts to protect his friend irrelevant. Stupidly deciding to insult cops while already having an arrest warrant out got Moon in a bad predicament. He ended up with charges that included "disorderly conduct" and "harassment" but the insults also prompted cops to investigate his background further. Police claim Moon was still dressed in a jail inmate costume when standing at the door of the residence and allegedly yelling at an officer -- instructing the cop to let go of Law. That was before he decided profanity and insults toward the officer were a good idea. After arresting Moon, cops decided a car in the yard belonged to the guy in custody -- and decided a stolen pistol on the front passenger seat was also his.
Moral of the story: Even though it may be legal, it's not the smartest to toss insults at police when they can claim you've got a handgun in your possession illegally. Cops decided to take a closer look at the Halloween 'jailbird' after the insults. 22-year-old Gregory Moon was still dressed in his black-and-white inmate costume, complete with stripes, when arraigned and forced to swap out the fake 'jail' attire for a real orange, inmate's jumpsuit. Moon's bail is set at a quarter of a million bucks: Moon has yet to post $250,000 bond, an issue he probably wouldn't have been facing had he not chosen to insult police officers.