A bike path in Grand Forks apparently is not the place for a bowel movement.
A police lieutenant riding his bicycle to work at about 7:30 a.m. Friday came upon a man squatting with his pants around his ankles -- doing his business.
"Not off to the side, not in the trees -- it was right on the bike path," Lt. Jeff Burgess said. "There's a whole bunch of other places you could go."
The man was on a path that goes under the DeMers Avenue overpass. Burgess, who wasn't in uniform, stopped biking and called the dispatch center on his cell phone to make a report. The man took off running, but officers eventually caught him near the apartment complex at 110 Cherry St.
The man, 49-year-old Richard Tata, pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct Friday in municipal court.
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Tata, who does not have a permanent address, was fined $151 and ordered to serve a day in jail, but $50 of the fine and the day in jail were suspended as long as he doesn't commit similar offenses in the next two years.
Burgess said the street department planned to clean up the mess Friday.
