Jailed for taking electricity worth 5 cents !

[antiqueshell]

My guess is the reason the subject was arrested in part was because he was combative with the police officer, and because he would not answer reasonable questions posed by law enforcement he was obstructing an investigation of the situation.

I don't believe the officer would have arrested him IF he would have simply agreed to leave the school premises and been civil doing so.

 

[KenO]

Originally Posted By: antiqueshell
My guess is the reason the subject was arrested in part was because he was combative with the police officer, and because he would not answer reasonable questions posed by law enforcement he was obstructing an investigation of the situation.

I don't believe the officer would have arrested him IF he would have simply agreed to leave the school premises and been civil doing so.





But you missed the part where he was NOT arrested that day even - it was 11 days later!!!

 

[TrevorS]

Originally Posted By: Trajan
You have no legal basis for your arguments. You're going on emotion. And the law does not work on emotion.

Never, ever, had a problem with them. Not when I broke traffic laws, not when I pulled a weapon to stop some fool from attacking me.

I've been pulled over because I was a block away form a 7/11 that got robbed. It was a quick look, I wasn't who they were looking for. I've been subject to random DUI checkpoints. Do I get upset? No. They're doing their job.

Many of you are funny. You complain of how the police are a street gang, then whine to the heavens when they don't handle some problem they really have no business dealing with. Or when you get caught breaking a law that you think shouldn't be.



I don't believe I'm going from emotion.

I find it strange that the vehicle was parked 35ft from the tennis court and the officer claims he could not find the owner or did not attempt to question the coach who was close enough to see him in the car.

I find it unwarranted that the officer entered and searched private property when it was not the school who had contacted him about this and there was no obvious imminent danger.

I find it unwarranted that they handcuffed him.

I find it very wrong that he was held in jail for 15 hours when the charge in court is going to be theft of 5c.

In terms of emotion, I do see emotion in terms of a dislike for the car owner from several posters. Now I wouldn't like anyone who scrounges electricity from public places and someone who is unnecessarily difficult with law enforcement.

But I also do not like people in authority who go beyond that authority and use their position of power for personal ingratiation. Clearly putting somebody in jail for 15 hours is a malicious act. Searching a vehicle was an invasion of privacy. When the police do not respect these boundaries and decencies, then liberty is at issue.

So Trajan, I take it you completely agree with the police conduct throughout. Let me ask you two questions.

1) If the owner had permission to charge the car, then would the police entry and search of the vehicle been justified?
2) Was it right that the owner was in jail for 15 hours?

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: TrevorS
But if someone did, then should they be arrested and held for 15 hours and receive a court date, or should they receive a warning, followed by a ban, followed by police intervention.

I'm not justifying what happened, nor am I condemning what happened. I'm neither prosecuting or defending the case. As I mentioned earlier, sometimes the police are given some pretty limited legal tools with which to deal with things. Other times, people give the police very little option.

We don't have all the facts, but the odds that this fellow just happened to run out of charge and needed to plug in for a few minutes to get home and was polite to everyone involved and never did this before are pretty slim.

And if the arrest were 11 days later, that happens to. Someone may have insisted upon pressing charges. The prosecutor may have a reason for pushing it. Perhaps this has been an ongoing issue. Maybe he was warned and told someone to shove it.

If I take a nickel's worth of gas from the Shell station down the street, it could take 11 days for me to get nailed with it, too. The police are busy, but I'm sure the Shell wouldn't appreciate me fooling around like that, nor would the police.

 

[TrevorS]

Well the police sergeant is the one who signed the arrest warrant, the school did not apparently press charges, and the police decided on an 8pm arrest and hence overnight jail stay.

So plenty of discretion applied here.

I know a lot of BITOG folks are straight up in terms of personal honesty, upstanding behavior in the community, but I think its possible to support the rule of law while simultaneously defending citizens from heavy handed policing. These things are not mutually exclusive.

 

[Garak]

I understand your point, Trevor. No matter what the case is, there's more to it than meets the eye. The officer is excessively bored and has nothing else to do or the suspect is a line stepper and they finally let him have it. The police got involved for a reason; they didn't stumble across him plugged in.

Think of it from a mathematical perspective. About 50% of an officer's dealings probably involve a rude, stupid idiot, and I'm being generous on my guess. 50% of police officers certainly aren't abusive. So, if a person is dealing with the police on something, there's a very good chance (certainly not a guarantee) that they did something to warrant that.

If this is abusive policing, it will be dealt with. If it's a big misunderstanding, it'll work out in the wash. If he did something stupid, he'll be punished for it.

 

[The_Jeff]

Originally Posted By: Trajan
Originally Posted By: TrevorS

the officer had no evidence that a crime was in progress.


Was the car being charged at a designated charging station?

It's a rhetorical question. He was on school property charging his car without their permission. Since he did not have their permission to use the outlet, he was...... stealing.



There are two schools of thought...

1) If it's not explicitly forbidden, it's okay.
2) One must gain explicit permission for it to be okay.

The school never felt it was an issue, and has not issued a sign/ policy about their electricity. They felt the Leaf owner's presence during school hours was an issue (distracting to the students? Security?) and warned him about that. The school has a power vacuum about its electricity policy; noone wanted to step up and set policy. Those in authority were following #1.

However, a concerned citizen felt like #2 was happening and called the police. The attitude of the Leaf owner allowed the formerly neutral Police to also feel like #2 was happening.

The variety of responses to this thread include 1 & 2 and aren't seeing eye-to-eye.

 

[CourierDriver]

Lets have a show of hands on all in here who may,,and again, may have accidentally cheated on your income tax and did not get caught......and did not send in the correction,,ok now...lol

 

[Trav]

Originally Posted By: eljefino
Originally Posted By: Trav
Originally Posted By: Eddie
+1 Astro14. We might not be so forgiving if we woke up to find someone charging their vehicle from our garage outlet or siphoning gas from our vehicle to "get home"


The amount of post making up excuses condoning theft frankly amazes me.
Has modern society become so screwed up that the difference between right and wrong is now a grey area?



It is a gray area because the school as a public property tries to politely host everyone in town for one reason or another. They are not a for-profit venture. They don't have a formal "outdoor power outlet" policy. They likely spend money to replace the nets in the tennis court every few years but as good members of the community don't try and charge a nickel rent for every set of tennis. I as a taxpayer am happy to host "the town" or even "the community" of out-of-towners to my free athletic fitness facility and all attached amenities so they can keep their chloresterol down and not be so fat. Even if a dozen goth kids show up with power strips and sit around playing nintendo I'd be happy they're getting fresh air. And I'm not going to have my people draw up a list of rules 50 pages long unless a chronic problem happens-- and then they'll post that list.

There are unwritten rules and never-written rules. This outlet's use policy seems to be one of these.


Simple then you set up a charging station at your house if you want to host the out of towners and see how long you like paying for it since you don't seem to mind if everyone else does.

It is not a grey area! The man is a thief and he got what he asked for.
IMO he is lucky the cops didn't give him a bit of VIP treatment for getting mouthy.

 

[demarpaint]

Originally Posted By: Trav

IMO he is lucky the cops didn't give him a bit of VIP treatment for getting mouthy.


Funny you mentioned that, I was thinking along the same lines. Imagine the twists and turns this thread would have taken had they tuned him up a bit for mouthing off?

 

[CourierDriver]

Originally Posted By: demarpaint
Originally Posted By: Trav

IMO he is lucky the cops didn't give him a bit of VIP treatment for getting mouthy.


Funny you mentioned that, I was thinking along the same lines. Imagine the twists and turns this thread would have taken had they tuned him up a bit for mouthing off?

Originally Posted By: demarpaint
Originally Posted By: Trav

IMO he is lucky the cops didn't give him a bit of VIP treatment for getting mouthy.


Funny you mentioned that, I was thinking along the same lines. Imagine the twists and turns this thread would have taken had they tuned him up a bit for mouthing off?

There would have been a 1000 pages,lol on that one.

 

[Trav]

That's why I think the cop was really okay. if he wasn't he could have easily made this guys life real entertaining.
IMO the cop realized he was dealing with a real piece of work and showed a lot more restraint than a lot of guys would.

Amazing how in situations like this the cop is always the bad guy and the perp is the poor abused citizen.

 

[demarpaint]

Oh yea the cop could have made one [censored] of a day for that guy. Some people wake up with a chip on their shoulder and are confrontational by nature. This guy with the Leaf could be one of those personalities.

 

[Vikas]

I am shocked, shocked to see most of you have no problem for a cop to enter your car without warrant or any reasonable suspicion.

 

[The_Jeff]

Originally Posted By: Trav

Amazing how in situations like this the cop is always the bad guy and the perp is the poor abused citizen.



I don't think the cop was bad, just incompetent, as evidenced by his 2nd grade write-up of the situation.

He could have baited the guy into one of several contempt-of-cop citations (failure to obey lawful order, failure to disperse, disorderly conduct) but exercised restraint, kicking the incident to his highers-up. They then went with the stolen electricity gambit. I honestly wonder why... not knowing the whole story. Maybe they assume the allegation of nickel theft will demean his intellect and he'll fly off the handle, alert the media, etc.

 

[whip]

Chamblee GA must be a very peaceful town. All other crime must be non existent to be wasting police resource on something this petty. Tell the guy to unplug his car, and move along.

 

[whip]

Originally Posted By: Vikas
I am shocked, shocked to see most of you have no problem for a cop to enter your car without warrant or any reasonable suspicion.

In these times we're in, more and more people are OK with letting our rights go in the name of "doing what's right". I don't get it either, and if we don't stop this behavior, it will get worse.

 

[Mykl]

Originally Posted By: Vikas
I am shocked, shocked to see most of you have no problem for a cop to enter your car without warrant or any reasonable suspicion.


That's kind of a different subject. If the guy was stealing then sure, charge him for it. But I do actually have a problem with a cop tearing apart my property for no good reason.

 

[linkbelt]

I see by the report that this guy is an "investment advisor".
Business must be a little slow if he has take a few pennies worth of power from a school, so he can drive his car!

 

[demarpaint]

Originally Posted By: Vikas
I am shocked, shocked to see most of you have no problem for a cop to enter your car without warrant or any reasonable suspicion.


Has a cop ever entered your car without warrant or any reasonable suspicion? I haven't encountered that problem yet, I've been driving for a long time too.