It probably wasn't what our Founding Fathers had in mind when they declared
freedom of speech to be a Constitutional right, but a Cincinnati lawyer
could be barking up the right tree by citing the First Amendment in
defending his client's right to bark at a police dog.
Earlier this month, 25-year-old Ryan James Stephens garnered wide media
attention after he was cited by a city police officer in Mason, Ohio, for
barking at Timber, the patrolman's K-9 associate, while the dog was confined
in the back seat of a police car.
The incident took place outside the Mason Pub at 2:30 a.m., and as you may
have guessed by now, alcohol was apparently involved.
I happened upon this man-barks-dog story while scanning the online version
of the Columbus Dispatch, to see what our neighbors to the north were up to.
In this case, it was police-dog taunting, a misdemeanor in the Buckeye
State, along with tormenting or striking a police dog or horse.
It seems that while Officer Bradley Walker was investigating a car crash in
the vicinity of the pub, he heard Timber barking continuously from the
confines of his car. When he returned to the vehicle to see what was causing
the commotion, he found Stephens barking and making hissing noises at the
dog, which the K-9 clearly didn't appreciate. When the officer asked an
apparently intoxicated Stephens what he thought he was doing, the suspect
replied, "The dog started it."
Walker eventually let Stephens ride home with an employee of the pub, and
probably thought the case was closed until Friday, when the young man's
lawyer announced that the citation would be contested on the grounds that it
violated his client's right to free speech.
Barking at a police dog "may not be the wisest thing to do," Stephens'
attorney was quoted as saying, "but it probably would be considered
protected speech."
In fact, in 2001, a similar case involving an Athens, Ohio, man cited for
police dog taunting after he barked back at a police dog named Pepsie, was
tossed out by a municipal judge whose decision was later affirmed by an Ohio
District Court of Appeals.
