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EV Owner Arrested Over 5 Cents Worth of Electricity From School's Outlet
sl4shd0rk writes "It seems you can be arrested in Georgia for drawing 5 cents of electricity from a school's outdoor receptacle. Kaveh Kamooneh was charged with theft for plugging his Nissan Leaf into a Chamblee Middle School 110V outlet; the same outlet one could use to charge a laptop or cellphone. The Leaf draws 1KW/hour while charging which works out to under $0.10 of electricity per hour. Mr Kamooneh charged his Leaf for less than 30 minutes, which works out to about a nickel. Sgt. Ernesto Ford, the arresting officer, pointed out, 'theft is a theft,' which was his argument for arresting Mr. Kamooneh. Considering the cost of the infraction, it does not seem a reasonable decision when considering how much this will cost the state in legal funds. Does this mean anyone charging a laptop or cell phone will be charged with theft as well?"
So, he admits theft. He had intention and permanently deprived a school of something that was theirs and they were required to pay for, and which they had not authorised.
I don't care if it was 5c or $500, he did something he shouldn't have. And the repercussions of his actions may have been greater - I work in schools and I can't leave trailing leads on the ground, I have to be careful not to overload circuits that are sometimes not even capable of providing the local 13A maximum without fusing things (but yet checked regularly and are legal). And he plugged it in and walked off, so there's no telling what might have happened - electrical fire, overloaded the circuit and cut off the alarm or some other important system, etc. and it's possible nobody would have known until he returned to his car.
Sorry, but you just can't do this. Try doing it in someone's house. I have an external socket on my house for powering garden tools - see what happens if you try to plug your car into it for even a microsecond. I guarantee you that it won't be worth your while. I have a lock on mine, but I have little reason to - using it without my express permission is theft whether it has a lock on or not.
You can whine as much as you want - as with anything, if you wouldn't have done it if the policeman was just standing right there watching you do it, there's a reason for that. You knew it was wrong and thought that nobody would mind and you'd just get away with it.
And you know what the biggest bitch of the whole story is? In any school I've ever worked in, if you'd just asked the caretaker / a school representative if you could do it first (like all our PTA and parents do when they want to do something on school premises, even outside of school hours or when they've paid for the hall inside), they'd probably have just said Yes. Hell, they'll put the extension leads out for you and make sure it's safe and using a safe socket and that the leads can't be tripped over if you ask nicely.
It pisses me off that people think that just because "it's only a few cents" (or only "a couple of mph", or "only for a minute"), that excuses that they knew it was wrong and deliberately chose to do it anyway.
If you wouldn't have done it at a random stranger's house, why would you do it at your children's school without asking?
I bet if the "suspect" was named "John Smith" and white he might not have been arrested.
I'm surprised that didn't make it into the summary.
Fuck you. Always some douche bag bleeding heart liberal around to scream racism isn't there? Piss ants like you have destroyed any credibility that term once had.
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