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Those Goddamn Kindergartners and Their Threats to Society
Stupid people make the best stories. Here’s the proof in QuizLaw’s Stupid People round-up:
1) In Wisconsin, Thomas E. Bartow got high and passed out in a Ramada Hotel bathroom. He was fully clothed, but sitting on the toilet. Officers shook him awake and asked for identification. Instead of his license, Bartow drunkenly pulled out a marijuana pipe and handed it to the officer. He was arrested for possession of drug paraphernalia and resisting arrest (he ignored the police’s efforts to stop him and was Tasered).
2) A 61-year-old woman was arrested for shoplifting at a grocery store. Her defense: She couldn’t wait in the check-out line because of irritable bowel syndrome. She was charged with petty larceny.
3) An off-duty police officer’s pistol accidentally discharged. The single bullet from the officer’s personal weapon injured three restaurant workers. That’s a hell of an accident. The officer has been placed on administrative leave.
4) In Indianapolis, a computer error at the local prison resulted in a missing file. Ronnie Williams, sentenced to 94 years in prison, was allowed out. Sadly for Williams, the prison discovered the error and he was re-arrested three days later.
5) And from a man who didn’t want to be in prison to one that did: a Florida man, Bradley Charles Barbier, called the jail and said he was coming in to serve a weekend sentence. Jail officials told Barbier that he wasn’t scheduled to serve, but Barbier showed up anyway. And, after some yelling, Barbier left, went out, busted a window of a deputy’s van, and stole a purse. He was charged with theft and put in jail, where he wanted to be all along.
6) And here’s the capper. From Slate:
On March 28, Desre’e Watson, a 6-year-old kindergarten student at Avon Elementary School, had a bad morning. She cried. She wailed. She kicked. She scratched. She hit a teacher. That’s what the police say, anyway.The police? That’s right. To subdue the unruly kindergartner, school officials phoned Avon Park’s police department (“committed to enhancing the ‘Quality of Life’ of the community”). When the cops arrived, young Desre’e attempted to resist arrest by crawling under a table. But Avon Park’s finest pulled her out, cuffed her, put her in a police cruiser, drove her to the county jail, and charged this 50-pound menace with a felony and two misdemeanors.
