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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?"
Well, the water fountain was designed and installed for free water. And there are outlets in public places for free electricity to top off one’s phone. But I don’t think that was the case here. I see this as more akin to your next door neighbor running an extension line over to your home to borrow a little electricity – and failing to tell you. It might be for only a small amount but it is not good behavior. I think that a stern warning might have been better unless it was a chronic problem.
This might be the case -- but did the school call the police because they saw someone plugging into their power outlet, or did the policeman do this "in the public good"? If the second, he has no jurisdiction. If the first, the school could have just unplugged the car and asked him not to do it again, possibly asking for the 5 cents back to cover expenses.
We're missing too much of the story here. Why was the officer poking around the car in the first place? How was the owner related to the school? Why was he there? Did he have a history of plugging his car into public outlets? Had he been approached about this before?
We don't know the answers, so there's really not much of a story here --- at least not in the way it was reported.
Ah yes, the ol,"I pay taxes, therefore I can take anything the government didn't nail down" defense.