Ed Responsible electric car driver jailed for stealing.

[Silly Green Monkey]

I'm not sure why the eleven days is being harped on as a significant interval. The wheels of police bureaucracy grind slowly.

 

[joesixpack]

I'm not sure why the eleven days is being harped on as a significant interval. The wheels of police bureaucracy grind slowly.

The fact that he was not a danger to the public is the issue. If someone presents a danger, they are taken into custody, if not they are generally issued a citation or booked (arrested and given a court date) and released. The eleven day delay is significant because the officer who initially dealt with the car owner CLEARLY didn't feel that the man represented a threat, the later arrest seems very much like a vindictive act on the part of the police.

 

[ponderingturtle]

The fact that he was not a danger to the public is the issue. If someone presents a danger, they are taken into custody, if not they are generally issued a citation or booked (arrested and given a court date) and released. The eleven day delay is significant because the officer who initially dealt with the car owner CLEARLY didn't feel that the man represented a threat, the later arrest seems very much like a vindictive act on the part of the police.

So when are people stealing from public institutions a threat to the public or not?

 

[joesixpack]

So when are people stealing from public institutions a threat to the public or not?

Sorry, I should have been more clear. I mean a threat to public safety. A drunk driver for example, or a person who was taken into custody after a fight or assault.

I suppose you do have a point though. I mean, selling pot isn't a threat necessarily but it's likely to get you locked up at the point of arrest. And you'd likely spend some time in the lock-up before you were brought before a judge to set bail.

The 11 day delay seems to be the issue here. Based on Foolmewunz's post above, it seems like the press is spinning this story as a simple act of plugging his car in. It sounds like the fellow was pretty confrontational with the cop so the cop would have been in his rights to take him into custody at the time.

 

[The Don]

So when are people stealing from public institutions a threat to the public or not?

Errr...... when it threatens the public ?

Usually this would be defined in terms of:

• Whether the individual is themselves a threat. For example if they are known to be violent or if they are carrying a weapon
• If the acts that they perform are known to cause public danger. Maybe if the person is stealing the power outlets themselves and leaving exposed live wires
• If the person is alleged to be taking items of high value (there doesn't seem to be a set value but a foew dollars worth doesn't seem to be it)
• If the person is a known recidivist

As far as we know, none of this seems to apply in this case. The officer on the scene didn't seem to think that the perpetrator was dangerous otherwise he would have been taken into custody immediately. It doesn't seem like a high value of electricity was taken and we have no evidence that the perpetrator has done this regularly.

 

[The Don]

I'm not sure why the eleven days is being harped on as a significant interval. The wheels of police bureaucracy grind slowly.

It's not so much the 11 days but rather the 11 day wait, arrest, being held overnight. Unless there is even more to come out, I cannot understand why he could not have just been presented with a summons.

 

[Foolmewunz]

It's not so much the 11 days but rather the 11 day wait, arrest, being held overnight. Unless there is even more to come out, I cannot understand why he could not have just been presented with a summons.

I absolutely agree. It's the "taking away in cuffs" part that's absurd. A summons would have been fairer, by far. No matter what the text read in words, what he'd see was "Remember when you were a dick to the beat cop a couple of weeks ago and made up b.s. and even tried to pin some car damage on him? Well, your chickens have come home to roost. See you in court on Tuesday at 10:30." At least the guy could've prepared himself and had some time to think before he started further embroidering the tale.

Petty dickhead with a badge and uniform vs petty dickhead with a fast mouth and an attitude. In suburban Atlanta? I'm going to bet on the one with the badge and uniform.

I do not, to be clear yet again, support the police actions on this. Overkill and a half! I just figured when I read it that his story was too much like the waitresses who get abused who turn out to be making it up. Too pat a story and too many warm puppy elements.

 

[MaxMurx]

1. Nothing was stolen from the school. The school does not own the electrical current. The school owns the power outlet. But the power outlet was not stolen.
2. Power plants or companies do not "sell" electrical current to customers but charge customers for the production of electrical current. "Stealing current" therefore equals "not paying for a service".
That equals "bilk". The problem is that nobody knows the amount of the check. Many large consumers have flat rates for electrical energy. If that is the case with the school not even a check was produced. In that case nothing has happened because no quantifiable damage did occur to anyone.

 

[Brian-M]

1. Nothing was stolen from the school.

Electrical energy was stolen.

 

[casebro]

I bet he NEVER plugs his car into the outlet at his own home.

 

[Iamme]

There's quite a difference between charging a 1Wh phone battery and a 24kWh car battery. A school might not mind if I have a quick drink from a water fountain, but they probably wouldn't want me to drag a hose over there and use it to fill my bath. From the article:

According to Ofgem, the average home in the UK uses around 3,300 kWh of electricity per year. An electric car which gets charged a couple of times a week is equivalent to an entire household's electricity use. Far from indicating prosecuting such a crime is silly on the face of it, the comparison of electric cars to homes seems entirely appropriate.



The article says it was an "external power outlet", which suggests to me he just plugged into a normal socket rather than there being a dedicated charging station for cars.



Several people have said that last part, but as far as I can tell there doesn't seem to have been any punishment at all yet. The man was arrested. There is no mention of him having been tried and sentenced. Spending a short time in jail while the police deal with your arrest is not particularly unusual, and has nothing to do with your eventual punishment or even whether you're guilty or not. That does unfortunately mean that entirely innocent people can spend time in jail while things are being processed, but it's nothing to do with punishing them.



More importantly, legal precedents. I completely agree with the general sentiment that stealing such a small amount doesn't exactly warrant the death penalty. But small amounts add up, and electric cars don't actually use particularly small amounts in the first place. Sure, the school could have afforded a few cents that this guy used. But if they say he's free to use their electricity, what happens when a bunch more people want to do so as well? They certainly can't afford to let everyone charge their cars, so a line needs to be drawn somewhere.

Shoplifting seems a reasonable analogy. Charging a phone is equivalent to smelling food while walking around a shop. Technically you're taking away part of the food, but it's such an unmeasurably small amount that no-one has any reason to care. But if I take so much as a single grape, I am stealing and will likely be prosecuted for doing so. Sure, it's only a small crime that doesn't call for a huge penalty, but it's still noticeable and it's the principle that matters. That one grape isn't going to bankrupt the store, but if you let everyone take one pretty soon you'll end up with no food left to sell.

I so much enjoyed reading your post, i should have saved it for my going to bed story.

 

[PhantomWolf]

1. Nothing was stolen from the school. The school does not own the electrical current. The school owns the power outlet. But the power outlet was not stolen.
2. Power plants or companies do not "sell" electrical current to customers but charge customers for the production of electrical current. "Stealing current" therefore equals "not paying for a service".
That equals "bilk". The problem is that nobody knows the amount of the check. Many large consumers have flat rates for electrical energy. If that is the case with the school not even a check was produced. In that case nothing has happened because no quantifiable damage did occur to anyone.

By this logic you should be perfectly happy with me tapping into your wifi and using your internet connection.

 

[Manopolus]

According to the story linked in the OP it was a nickel's worth of electricity (5 cents). That's just an approximation in the story.

As far as I can see, he wasn't sentenced to jail time but he was arrested and held in jail overnight. Unless there is a lot more to the story (for example that he was requested to attend a police station and failed to do so resulting in an arrest warrant being issued - or there's some kind of local zero-tolerance to petty theft), the punishment does seem out of kilter with the crime.

That's pretty common in the south, actually. Around here they'd just serve some paperwork and have you show up in court for minor things, but that's not true down South, from my experience -- not for anything more serious than a speeding ticket.

I once spent a weekend in a holding cell with 6 other people for an expired registration down in Texas... basically waiting for the judge to see me. I couldn't even bail myself out, because bail had not been set, of course (the weird thing is that I actually DID have to post bail if I didn't want to stay in jail for a few more weeks -- for an expired registration!? -- AND they even dropped the charges after I fixed the situation, so I really wasn't charged with anything). I also missed 2 days work because I normally worked weekends (Tuesday and Wednesday were my days off at the time). Yeah, it kind of pissed me off. I moved back to Kansas shortly after that.

They sure taught me my lesson:

I will NEVER live South of the Mason-Dixon line again.

I don't know for sure that Georgia is the same way, but I've gotten the impression (from random conversations) that this sort of thing is pretty common to all the Southern states.