As Kenosha’s City Council considers making the city’s profane language ordinance more specific, most of the state’s largest cities have attempted to keep those issues more generic.

Kenosha aldermen on Wednesday will consider an amendment to the city’s profane language ordinance that would allow city police officers and firefighters to issue warnings and tickets if profane, vile, filthy or obscene language is heard while the officers/firefighters are in the line of duty.

Such language is already prohibited in public places in Kenosha, but the Kenosha Municipal Court has determined that a third party, besides a law enforcement official and the person accused of using foul language, needs to sign a complaint for the violation.

Alderman Patrick Juliana, the sponsor of the amendment, said the change is intended to allow authorities to quell situations where the language may cause further disturbance at a crime scene or during an emergency response.

“This does not mean that a police officer will hear something and will give you a ticket,” Juliana said. “It all comes down to a situation where it leads to escalation or incitement to another level.

“We’re trying to protect the citizens and trying to aid the police department. We are not rewriting what we already have on the books.”

The cost for violating Kenosha’s language ordinance is $118.

Kenosha Police Sgt. Hugh Rafferty said the department can see some potential assistance from this proposal.

“It would remove the onus of signing a complaint from a party that would fear retribution or retaliation,” Rafferty said.

Racine has similar ordinance

However, Kenosha does not have much company among Wisconsin’s largest cities in terms of specifically addressing language through ordinance.

Racine is the only other one of the state’s five largest cities that has an ordinance directed solely at offensive language.

“We call it verbal abuse. It’s kind of a catchall,” said Stacey Salvo, a paralegal for the city of Racine.

Racine’s ordinance states: “No person shall use, state or utter in another person’s presence any abusive, obscene or threatening word, gesture, phrase or language intended or naturally tending to provoke or incite an act of violence by such other person.”

Salvo said this ordinance was passed by the city in 1973, and she was not aware of any legal challenges to that law. The city’s ordinances do not specify any different standards or penalties for language directed at police officers or firefighters.

A violation of Racine’s verbal abuse ordinance would cost about $228.

Other cities back off

The state’s three largest cities — Milwaukee, Madison and Green Bay — do not have ordinances that refer only to offensive or inciting language. All three say language issues would fall under their standards for disorderly conduct.

“If something with language was going to be charged, it would be under disorderly conduct, which is kind of a broad ordinance about conflict that could cause a disturbance,” said Kurt Behling, assistant city attorney for the city of Milwaukee.

Madison cited similar standards, and Green Bay said language had to meet certain requirements to be considered for its disorderly conduct violations.

“It has to be profane, and it has to tend to cause a disturbance,” said Kail Decker, an assistant city attorney for Green Bay. “I have prosecuted several citations based solely on the language, and it is not when someone uses one curse word; it’s usually a string of words.”

Eau Claire and Appleton also do not have ordinances based specifically on offensive language, instead addressing those concerns through disorderly conduct ordinances.

Attorneys from both communities cited complications with allowing free speech.

“Speech alone is a challenging thing to prohibit,” said Stephen Nick, city attorney for Eau Claire. “If it tends to incite violence or disorder, certainly there is a tendency to restrict it, but case law makes it particularly challenging. Simply critiquing a law officer’s behavior is a challenging thing to restrict.

ACLU in opposition

The American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin already has spoken out against Kenosha’s proposed amendment and also suggested repealing Kenosha’s existing profanity ordinance due to concerns with limiting free speech.

Citations for disorderly conduct range from $175 in Milwaukee to $366 in Green Bay.

Juliana said he believes the issue of how to enforce profane and inciting language should not be dependent on how other cities address those concerns.

“It’s unfair to make a correlation between them and us,” Juliana said. “We have been able to address our laws and still be within the guidelines.”

The ordinance amendment is scheduled to go before Kenosha’s City Council at 7 p.m. on Wednesday.