

Electric Car owner charged for stealing electricity from school - jusben1369
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2013/12/04/electric-car-owner-charged-theft/3866729/

======
Mikeb85
Maybe it's because Canada is so cold (at this exact moment the temperature is
minus 20C with a foot or two of snow on the ground) and block heaters in cars
were the norm for so long, but just about every parking lot (that isn't in a
shopping centre) has electric outlets here. At schools, apartment buildings,
etc.... When I park my car at the University there's electric outlets for
every single stall (of course nowadays most cars start easily without block
heaters).

Electricity is cheap enough that being able to 'plug in' is generally
acceptable anywhere, except where explicitly forbidden...

------
jusben1369
It's interesting. Putting aside the actual value and concentrating on the
behavior. If a driver knew that a school keep gasoline for filling up buses or
other purposes and went and topped up his car while his son played tennis
he/she would be fully aware that they were stealing. They may still do it, but
it wouldn't make the papers and/or they wouldn't act surprised if they were
caught "Oh can't anyone take the petrol if they need it?"

~~~
001sky
What is the diference between a car and an iPhone? I could very well see a kid
charging his iPhone at soccer practice to call mom for a ride home (or
whatever). The issue is a commercial grade of service vs an residential or
amateur one. The behaviour (say, recharging your laptop at starbucks) is not
inherently _larceny_ ("theft of property") in terms of social norms. Or are
you suggesting it should be?

~~~
leephillips
My wife will not plug in her iPhone to charge it at work. It all depends on
your ethical standards. I, on the other hand, never thought twice about doing
this.

EDIT: Didn't think I would have to actually explain this, but here goes: the
phone is for her personal use, unlike the computer, monitor, and other things
on her desk supplied, along with the electricity, by her employer.

~~~
manmal
If she is using a particularly bright monitor setting that might use more
electricity per day than a plugged in phone.

------
Loic
I suppose that in nearly every other country in the world, the police would
not come, but a staff of the school would simply tell the car owner to just
unplug his car and not do it again.

But maybe people like that should be sent in front of a court to give judges
some work because the don't have enough work yet. This would be great, steal 5
cents of power, go in front of a court, active the police and the judiciary
system, create 1000's $ of invoices, increase the GDP of the country!

~~~
cujo
Just stop with this nonsense.

There's likely more story here than what the article provides. Most likely he
had been told before not to plug in, has an unrelated dispute with someone at
the school, etc.

Not every story needs to be an excuse to rant against the system.

~~~
hmottestad
There just seems to be so many of these great little nuggets coming from
across the pond. Offhand: "Don't tase me bro"

~~~
jessaustin
Nothing to see here! Move along!

------
startupfounder
Let's look at the facts: 5 cents.

The Nissan LEAF gets 3.16 mi/kWh[1]. When plugged into a standard household
outlet for 20 minutes you get 1.67 miles of driving (1 hour = 5 miles)[2],
which by my calculation is 0.52848101 kWh of electricity. As the elementary
school is in CHAMBLEE, Ga. the utility provider is Georgia Power[3]. The
highest electricity rate for a school is 10.9269¢ per kWh. So a man got
arrested in front of his kids and community for "stealing" $0.0577465918[4].

[1][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Leaf#cite_note-
CR1211-69](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Leaf#cite_note-CR1211-69)

[2][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Leaf#cite_note-84](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Leaf#cite_note-84)

[3][http://www.georgiapower.com/pricing/files/rates-and-
schedule...](http://www.georgiapower.com/pricing/files/rates-and-
schedules/7.00_sch-15.pdf)

[4][http://www.11alive.com/news/article/314666/40/Electric-
car-o...](http://www.11alive.com/news/article/314666/40/Electric-car-owner-
charged-with-stealing-5-cents-worth-of-juice)

------
ufmace
Sounds like there's gotta be more to the story. Any sane officer, school,
jurisdiction, would have either ignored it or told the guy to knock it off and
then left him alone. For there to be an actual arrest, probably either the cop
is a raging dickhead (unlikely), the guy was a raging dickhead to the cop
(rather more likely), or the guy was involved in some unrelated prior dispute
that this is retaliation for. For criminal charges to be filed and not
dismissed the first time a DA or judge sees it, it kinda implies either the
unrelated dispute or the entire legal system in the area is full of raging
dickheads all covering for each other.

~~~
jessaustin
_...either the cop is a raging dickhead (unlikely)..._

Is this a "privileged" statement?

------
jdludlow
Already covered on HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6844702](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6844702)

------
xvolter
This sounds like a situation that was just blown out of partition. An officer
who cares about the theft of five cents on a single occasion is an officer
with too much free time. Does he realize how much his five minutes cost tax
payers when he was telling this guy about how he stole? And seriously? Stole!
Five cents of electricity from a public school? The guy's a tax payer
(assumption), therefore, if you follow the money, somehow he paid for the
electricity to begin with. If you take that aside even more, it's better for
him to steal five cents of electricity than drive a gasoline car, I'd gladly
allow random strangers to charge from my parking lot outlets if it encouraged
more people to go green. Considering tax money also gives free electricity to
people who cannot afford it, hypothetically, if this guy was on a financial
assistance program to pay for his utilities would it still be stealing
considering the money is coming from the same place? It's not like five cents
would hold either, the moment this is disputed it'd be dropped.

------
frogpelt
1\. The guy who stole the electricity would want someone to ask before they
used his electricity. 2\. I doubt the police officer would arrest anyone in
his family for doing something this petty.

Principled thinking would have resolved the conflict before it started.

------
paulyg
I agree that this person should not have been using the school's electricity
to charge his car. But to have him arrested is an extreme over reaction. The
punishment does not fit the crime. That is what I take away from this story.

~~~
jusben1369
Well to be a stickler for detail being arrested isn't the punishment. If he
was taken to the police station then let off with a warning that would be his
actual punishment. However I agree that it's a rather extreme response from
the onsite officer.

~~~
jack-r-abbit
_Sgt. Ford says the officer should have arrested Kamooneh on the spot. But he
didn 't. Instead, the officer filed a police report. Then 11 days passed, and
two deputies showed up at his house in Decatur. [snip] Ford said he sought the
arrest warrant after determining that school officials hadn't given Kamooneh
permission to plug in his car._

The onsite officer did _exactly_ as he should. He filed a report. And then the
officer's boss (Sgt. Ford) got the arrest warrant later. And then 2 other
officers made the arrest. So there was more than just one person involved
here.

------
phorese
> _charged_

Heh.

~~~
microtherion
At least the car owner was not charged with battery.

------
kmlymi
I know that this person wasn't doing this, but would it be feasible to charge
the car up at school, and then once at home use the car as a generator to save
on his electricity bill?

------
VLM
The journalist needs to put a tiny little bit more effort into it....

The real story is likely something along the lines of the usual labor dispute,
or this guy is dating an ex-girlfriend of someone in mgmt, or he filed a
complaint and this is the anti-whistleblower reaction.

As a resident of a northern tier state this story from Georgia is weird
because most people up here have block heaters and they will plug into any
hole it'll fit into. The current draw of a block heater is wildly variable but
then again they're wildly more popular. Pretty much, nobody blinks at this
behavior as long as you don't do something idiotic/dangerous like run an
extension cord across a road/walkway or thru a puddle of water. There's a
reason they put those electrical outlets at the base of the lightpost and it's
not to encourage stupid extension cord triplines.

------
gesman
Your tax dollars at work!

