Arrest for theft of 5 cents of electricity

It's not the 15 hours spent in the jail that's the issue. That was certainly way beyond reasonable. The issue is about taking advantage of the school's power outlet without permission. It's theft no matter what spin is put on it. As far as the attention this is getting, maybe it was just a slow news day. Nonetheless, it's sensationalism at its finest.

 

I hope you aren't in a position of power. You have a warped sense of justice.

 

In any crime, what is the objective of detention? Mere punishment? Or are we trying to alter the convict's behavior? If so, I think they failed with only 15 hours.

 

You refer to him as a convict. He wasn't convicted of anything yet and he is considered innocent until proven guilty.
So lets do the math anyway. $0.05 = 15 hours, $1= 12.5 days, $5 = 125 days $10 250 days....
Like I said, you have a warped sense of justice.

 

I say put the EV perp and Jean Val-Jean in a cell together far away from law abiding folks for LIFE.

 

Yes, it is a small price to pay for the benefits. It isn't justification for entitlement to every outlet within range of a plug in's charge cord. It also isn't going to help the environment in the long run getting pompous when that feeling of entitlement is questioned as some reports have stated on this incident. The the BEV driver at your meeting respond with a "do you have a permission to pollute with your gas car," when asked if he asked before plugging in?

The police response is over blown for this, but this guy's action do put a negative light on the plug in community. Current and future plug in owners and supporters, how do you feel when an ICE parks in a charger spot? Annoyed, angry? Something along those lines. Why can't others feel the same about an plug in using an outlet without permission?

We don't have all the details. Was the tennis instructor's car also parked in the lot with the Leaf? In other words, was this a lot users of the tennis regularly park, or did the Leaf have to be parked out of the way to reach the outlet? Was the Leaf locked? A strange, non-local car parked next to the school when no car should be there is going to attract police attention.

Was he held at the police station, or sent to county? Those are two different things, and each has been reported.

 

As for the cop, the record states that he responded to a call of suspected theft of electricity. Yet he writes that he entered the car without permission because he thought it deserted.

LOL

 

You seem hung up on the 5 cents.

Is it less important that this 75 cents?

(1 hour long)

 

A *No Tresspassing* sign on the school grounds would give the officer legal right to arrest/ticket the BEV owner for accessing the electrical outlet without permission. Without a "No tresspassing" sign, the police officer needs to have a specific public law/ordinance that disallows school facilities from being used without permission to file charges against the BEV owner to have legal standing in court ( the public law automatically gives the police officer legal standing in court). If there is no public law (local/state) then, the school system must file charges against the BEV owner for tresspassing for the charges to have legal standing. If this does not happen, then the BEV's lawyer can ask and get the criminal charges dropped (via pre-court summary judgement) on the technicality that the officer has no legal standing. Legal standing in a court of law means that claims-charges by a plaintiff/law-enforcement agent against a defendent are valid if the plaintiff(one(s) filing damages) if they have suffer some damages from the defendent. Given that the damages-loss by the school system are under a dollar - only court cost and criminal fines would be valid.


To protect against the *Failure of the Commons* economic scenario, a person should not be allowed
access to the public school's resources (electricity) without permission.

 

I wonder how many LEAFS would have to charge together 24/7 before the school could even identify a bump in their consumption.

As for destroying the school budget ? Rediculous

 

My electric bill is to the penny, does someone here get a bill for "About this much money"? Is there any Plug in owner here (who charges on his own account) who has seen no difference in their electric bill? I concede that if you only plug in on other folk's property when they are not looking, your bill is unchanged. But I wonder, if you steal all the electricity, why didn't you steal the car as well?

 

The bill is to the penny, but it VARIES from month to month. At least mine does.

 

To prevent abuse and overuse, access to public facility must be regulated and control.
People are naturally aggressive and a few bad apples can eventually destroy it for everyone.
It's up to the local government to protect public facilities from abuse.

My experience is that people tend not to value or respect things (i.e. they take entitlements for granted ) they didn't explicitly work for or pay for - I'm all for BEVs but I just want people to work for them and work for the electricity that they use to run them.

While I am surprise that the school system doesn't turn off external outlets via a circuit breaker - that does not absolve the BEV owner from the guilt of using public facilities without permission. Where I live there are local electric car public charging stations and recharging your BEV can be free OR it could cost you from 49 cents/hour to $3/hour on the first hour to recharge - it is up to the facility paying for the electricity to make the decision. However, most of the local public charging stations discourage recharging a BEV for over an hour - to prevent any one BEV owner from hogging up the limited number of local public charging stations.

Giving out free electricity would risk for having multiple BEVs persistently drawing electricity from the school electrical outlets and denying other from using limited school parking.

 

How about this for public benefit: the perp was playing tennis. In the oh so fat state of GA, he should receive free electricity AND a medal.

Just imagine if those courts had night lighting as a public service. Now you are talking about a load worth a discussion.

 

Why couldn't both be reasonable possibilities? Or perhaps the one that called it in unplugged the car?

It's like copyright and trademark law. If the school didn't take action upon learning of this incident, they could lose their rights if/when other plug ins start charging up on the weekend. The man also admitted that he had charged his car there previously.

How did this guy even know that the outlet could support charging a BEV?

For the 'it's only 5 cents' crowd, how about we look at this from another angle. He was there for his son's tennis lesson. So maybe an hour for the car to charge. From a standard outlet, a Leaf will get about 5 miles of range in an hour of charging. If it was only for 5 more miles, why even bother pulling out the cord? If that is the difference between getting home or not, the Leaf was the wrong choice for the trip.

 

Color me skeptical

 

Agreed, unless he was dangerously low on range he should have simply waited until he got home to charge. From the article though it sounds like he regularly uses other people outlets, so I'd guess he had range, and was literally just trying to steal electricity because he is cheap. Just because the dollar value is small doesn't make it ok, if the school had a gas pump for it's fleet it wouldn't be kosher for just any schmoe to drive up and start filling up their tank because they feel like it, even if it was one $.05 drop of gas at a time.

Not that the cops aren't at fault here either. Hopefully the city will enact some laws that turn this into a simple fineable offense, $50 or $100 bucks for plugging your car in where it shouldn't be, that alone would make people think twice about whether it's worth it to save that couple cents off their home bill or not.

 

I can't understand why this is so difficult for some to understand...
The guy plugged in and started recharging his car without permission- period! It's stealing.

How would you look at a guy who lives behind a school and fills his backyard pool every year from the school's outside water faucet? Or he runs a hose from the school every Saturday to water his lawn. A thief right? Why is taking electricity without permission any different?


I also agree that the police response was overkill, but it seems like the guy was being a dick to the cops. Act like that.... you get arrested 99 out of 100 times- it's not right, but that's real life.

 

Arrest a jerk in an EV who steals electricity? "You're being unreasonable!!"
NOT arrest a Suburban driver parked in an EV-only space? "You're being unreasonable!!"



I say ticket them both, and get on with your life!

Oh....and if you're stoopid enough to give the Po-Po a bunch of attitude while they're scribbling on their pad?
Weeeeell....

 

GMAE, GAME?!
Hypermiling is a game??
Keeping it ECO mode, pumping tires up to 50 psi, timing stop lights to arrive on the green, entering every gallon put in the car on Fuely, bragging about your mpg or total miles per tank, that's a GAME??
Surely you jest!