Kansas City News Blog

By CAROLYN SZCZEPANSKI

Cory Bishop was already on his way to meet with the cops when he got pulled over in early May. The 20-year-old construction worker was driving to Sharky’s restaurant in Harrisonville — a town 35 miles southeast of Kansas City — to chat with a police detective who had some questions about a brawl five months earlier. Before Bishop got to the pool hall, though, his Ford F150 pickup truck caught the attention of another squad car.

When Bishop got pulled over, the officer told him it was because the truck’s taillights were out. But when the Peculiar resident got his citations in the mail a few days later, he had a ticket that took him by surprise. He knew he’d been busted for the broken taillights and not having his vehicle registration in his glove box. But he didn’t know he’d run afoul of city law by displaying an “indecent” bumper sticker.

Now, the local American Civil Liberties Union is taking steps to ensure Harrisonville citizens' First Amendment rights are protected — even if it’s the right to bear bumpers stickers of Calvin grabbing his crotch.

In late 2007, Bishop got a couple of stickers at a World of Wheels auto show. Some might call them offensive. He thought they were, well, funny.

Imports are like tampons. Every pussy has one. Spark plugs are for Pussies. Ford Power Stroke.

Stroke this Bitch.

He slapped them on the back of his pickup and didn’t get any flack from pissed-off parents or peeved foreign-car drivers. “I mean, I’ll be in the Wal-Mart parking lot or somewhere and people will be reading them and, like, drop to the ground, laughing.”

But Harrisonville officials didn’t find them quite so amusing. That night he was pulled over, Officer Osterberg of the Harrisonville Police Department issued Bishop a citation for “having two stickers on the back window of truck with the words ‘Pussy + Bitch’ in plain view of the public.” Faced with a $100 fine, Bishop argued his First Amendment right to free speech when he went to court on July 3. The Cass County judge sided with the city. “I told the judge, ‘So you’re going to give everybody in town a ticket who has a sticker that says something similar to this?’” Bishop recalls.

Bishop didn’t have the $250 to appeal the decision, so he got on the phone with the ACLU of Kansas and Western Missouri. The civil liberties’ defenders took notice. Though the prosecuting attorney eventually threw out the charge against Bishop, the ACLU thinks the Harrisonville ordinance may need its day in court as well.

The law in question says: “Any person who shall within the corporate limits of the City stick, write or put upon any street, alley, sidewalk, crossing or on any wall, fence or other public place any indecent word, phrase or depiction shall be deemed guilty of an offense.”

On September 5, the ACLU’s new chief counsel and legal director, Doug Bonney, fired off a letter to Harrisonville Mayor Kevin Wood questioning the ordinance. He cited case law that upholds citizens’ right to display language that others deem “vulgar.” He suggested the city at least amend the measure. “The current ordinance’s ban on display of ‘indecent’ signs on private property is unconstitutional and cannot stand,” Bonney wrote. “We would like to work with the City to resolve this problem.”

Mayor Wood hasn’t returned several calls from The Pitch. As of Tuesday, Wood hadn’t responded to the ACLU’s letter, either. Bonney says he’ll be sending a second note this week — this one with the threat of a lawsuit.