Woman arrested for toilet message

• Tweet

MOUNT PLEASANT, Tenn., March 18 (UPI) -- A Tennessee woman was arrested for writing an obscene message directed to a police officer on a broken toilet and leaving it in her front yard.

Investigators said Patti Cole, 48, of Mount Pleasant was angry at Rob Wagonshutz, a member of the Maury County Drug Task Force, for arresting her daughter March 1 at her home, so she scrawled an obscene message addressed to Wagonshutz on a broken toilet and left it outside her home, The (Columbia) Daily Herald reported Monday.

"[Expletive] you, Rob Wagonshutz" the toilet bowl read, with the tank next it bearing the message, "Rob Wagonshutz special place in hell for u and ur boys!"

Wagonshultz, who lives near Cole's home, was alerted to the message and filed a complaint.

"Since she used the language she did, it took a step beyond freedom of speech and turned it into disorderly conduct because it created a physically offensive condition by an act that serves no legitimate purpose," Wagonshultz said.

"No parents would want their children to have to read that," he said. "Had she used different language about me, the sheriff's department or the drug task force as a whole, it wouldn't have gotten this far at all."

Cole was charged with disorderly conduct.

Wagonshultz and his team arrested Cole's daughter, Allison Michelle Powell, 30, at Cole's home March 1. She was allegedly trying to flush drugs down the toilet at the time of her arrest and officers disassembled the commode to retrieve the evidence, Wagonshultz said.