Watercooler Stories

Vulgarity to NYPD cop may mean jail

NEW YORK, Aug. 31 (UPI) -- A New York City man could be sentenced to 15 days in jail for shouting an obscene and anatomically impossible insult at a police officer.

Ramon Morena was given a summons for an incident in March when an officer approached him on a street corner where he was reportedly having a loud argument with a woman, the New York Post reported.

Morena was issued a summons for disorderly conduct, defined in the law as conduct that causes, or creates a risk of public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm.

In Morena's first court appearance, his lawyer argued civilians enjoy a First Amendment right to criticize and verbally challenge police officers, but Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Richard Weinberg disagreed.

Weinberg said that defense "would ... effectively carve out a police-officer exception from the disorderly conduct statute and to condone the heaping of verbal abuse upon a police officer regardless of the circumstances. This the court will not do."

Morena goes back before the judge on Sept. 5, the newspaper said.

R.I. school bans all fashions kids like

EAST GREENWICH, Conn., Aug. 31 (UPI) -- A Rhode Island high school enacted a dress code Wednesday, banning almost everything teenagers like wearing, the Providence (R.I) Journal reported.

The East Greenwich High School, south of Providence, now bans any kind of hat, visible underwear, bare midriffs, ripped jeans, spike-studded bracelets and collars, and to the dismay of many of the girls, spaghetti-strap tops, the newspaper said.

Meg Baird, 16, told the Journal she could understand the visible underwear ban, but said no spaghetti-straps was going too far.

"They have restricted way too much," she said. "Girls like to wear spaghetti-straps and that's what is in all the stores."

The new taboos join previous bans on see-through clothing, mini-skirts and shirts whose slogans promote drugs, alcohol, smoking, violence or sexual activity, the newspaper said.

Dallas mulls crackdown on saggy pants

DALLAS, Aug. 31 (UPI) -- The Dallas city council is considering banning droopy pants that expose underwear but teenagers are saying they're already out of date and so eighth-grade.

Last week, city attorneys were asked to determine if a ban would be enforceable but The Dallas Morning News learned it could be moot.

Irving Campbell, who works at a clothing store, told the newspaper fashion police would have a hard time fining anyone, as the saggy pants most often are now covered by T-shirts that hang down to the knee.

"Tall tees are the biggest thing out now," Campbell said. "Wasn't the underwear thing in the '90s with Kris Kross?"

Interviewed in a mall food court, Andrew Mgbenu, 18, said showing the top of underwear was for juveniles.

"Kids haven't done that since eighth grade," he told the Morning News.

CSI: Crime Scene Investment?

BOULDER, Colo., Aug. 31 (UPI) -- On the market, the five-bedroom, Tudor-style home in Boulder, Colo., where JonBenet Ramsey was killed in 1996 -- asking price, just under $1.8 million.

Prospective buyers may encounter news crews outside the home, but that's standard procedure for infamous addresses. And those properties do sell.

The Modesto, Calif., bungalow formerly owned by convicted double murderer Scott Peterson and his slain pregnant wife sold for $390,000. A bidding war erupted over the home of Dennis Rader, the BTK killer, who admitted to killing 10 people between 1974 and 1991.

The Fall River, Mass., house where Lizzie Borden killed her parents is a bed and breakfast.

Public curiosity about crime scenes is only natural, pop culture writer Chris Epting told ABCNews.com, but not every crime scene can become a tourist destination.

"I can't imagine the Ramsey house turned into anything like the Borden house, ever," said Epting. "It's a horrible crime against a child, and that's a million miles over the line."