Deputies Ask Woman's Name So She Flashes a Poem on Her Breasts

By Andrew Chow, Esq. on April 03, 2012 | Last updated on March 21, 2019

Call it poetic justice: A Florida woman is behind bars after sheriff's deputies asked for her name -- and she responded by flashing her bare breasts. They apparently displayed a poetic tattoo.

"Poem of dead tree" is how deputies in Indian River County, Fla., described the tattoo on Susan Stickle's bare chest in an arrest report, TCPalm.com reports. It's not clear what the poem said, or who its author may be.

But the facts are a bit more clear about what led to Stickle's bare-chested arrest March 25, when a neighbor reported a possible burglary in progress.

Sheriff's deputies responded to a house in Vero Beach about 2:30 a.m. and heard some commotion along with breaking glass, TCPalm.com reports. Officers saw Susan Stickle, 31, and Eric Bachman, 41, on the porch, allegedly intoxicated.

A deputy tried to separate Stickle and Bachman, but Stickle clung to Bachman and "yelled slurred expletives," the deputy wrote in his report.

When the deputy asked Stickle for her name, she "yelled that she had no ID and pulled her shirt completely off and exposed her bare breast to me and the other officers on scene," the deputy wrote. That's when the officers noticed the "Poem of dead tree" tattooed on her breasts, TCPalm.com reports.

Deputies arrested Stickle and Bachman in connection with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest without violence.

A disorderly conduct charge is also known as "disturbing the peace" or being intoxicated in public. Law enforcement officers generally use it against people who behave in a disruptive manner, but present little danger to the public.

As for resisting arrest without violence, that's a misdemeanor in Florida. But had Stickle or Bachman been violent, they could have faced felony charges.

Deputies later learned Bachman had a right to be on the property, but that won't affect his charges.

As for Susan Stickle, the arresting deputies -- well versed in dealing with allegedly intoxicated criminals -- will likely find the poem on her breasts quite difficult to forget.

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