Disorderly Conduct is charged in Fort Collins and Larimer County when a person makes a lot of noise in public or makes a display in public that incites a breach of peace. With the current situation in the United States, many people are participating in protests, and those protests have resulted in arrests and criminal charges for some. According to a recent article, more than 10,000 people have been arrested in relation to the protests, some of those people charged with Disorderly Conduct. Let’s take a closer look at this crime and how easy it is to get charged in Colorado.
Fort Collins Disorderly Conduct Lawyer: Definition of Disorderly Conduct in Colorado
The Larimer County, Colorado law definition of Disorderly Conduct – C.R.S. 18-9-106 – is:
(a) Makes a coarse and obviously offensive utterance, gesture, or display in a public place and the utterance, gesture, or display tends to incite an immediate breach of the peace; or
(b) (Deleted by amendment, L. 2000, p. 708, § 39, effective July 1, 2000.)
(c) Makes unreasonable noise in a public place or near a private residence that he has no right to occupy; or
(d) Fights with another in a public place except in an amateur or professional contest of athletic skill; or
(e) Not being a peace officer, discharges a firearm in a public place except when engaged in lawful target practice or hunting or the ritual discharge of blank ammunition cartridges as an attendee at a funeral for a deceased person who was a veteran of the armed forces of the United States; or
(f) Not being a peace officer, displays a deadly weapon, displays any article used or fashioned in a manner to cause a person to reasonably believe that the article is a deadly weapon, or represents verbally or otherwise that he or she is armed with a deadly weapon in a public place in a manner calculated to alarm.
During a protest, or generally any time a person is in public, any of the above would be easy to charge. Who decides what an offensive gesture is? Is simply being around others who are loud mean you are intending to incite a breach of peace? Is yelling for change making unreasonable noise? It seems that police officers can easily decide what the elements mean and can charge easily if they want to.
Sentence for Disorderly Conduct in Loveland and Estes Park
In Fort Collins, Loveland, and Estes Park, Disorderly Conduct is a petty offense or misdemeanor depending on which subsection a person is charged under:
- For a charge under subsection (a) or (c), it is a class 1 petty offense;
- For a charge under subsection (d), it is a class 3 misdemeanor;
- For a charge under subsection (e) or (f), it is a class 2 misdemeanor.
If you or someone you love has been ticketed or arrested for Disorderly Conduct, be smart, exercise your right to remain silent, and contact the best criminal defense attorneys from the O’Malley Law Office at 970-658-0007 to schedule your free consultation today. Together, we can protect your future.
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