70 year old woman arrested for failing to maintain her lawn

70 year old woman arrested for failing to maintain her lawn

www.abclocal.go.com

Orem, UT (KABC) -- Utah police have arrested a 70-year-old great grandmother for not maintaining her lawn.
The city of Orem says residents have to keep up their property or face a class B misdemeanor.
An officer tried to give Betty Perry a ticket but she refused to give him her name. The officer then tried to put her in handcuffs.
Perry says she fell while the officer handcuffed her, cutting her nose, and that her wrists were also cut from what she calls the officer's use of force.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Geez...

Remind me to never set foot in Orem, Utah. What a bunch of Gestapos.

www.abclocal.go.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

I could have sworn I read this story last year, on this site.

Weird, this version is dated Feb 4 2k8...

Maybe im imagining things?

Either way, it was a stupid situation when i happened, and its stupid now. I would imagine she would be able to fight her ticket and win based on the publicity this case got.

Hmmm, this is a little bit of a touchy subject I think. For 1, rules are rules, and there should be no exceptions. Having said that, I have great respect for the elderly, and hate to see this happen. Personally I would never have been able to do this If I was the cop.

I would be interested in hearing the story from the Cops point of view. If they have already been cleared of any wrong doing, I am sure they were correct in doing their job. Like I said, I would not have been able to do that though personally.

This lady might not be a perfect citizen that got wronged. She might have a history of problems with the Police, which could have helped to fuel this conflict. I will see If I can find anymore info.

Originally posted by InSpiteOf
I could have sworn I read this story last year, on this site.

Was this the same woman?

reply to post by InSpiteOf


I thought the same, and we are right, this has appeared before.

Only in America - 70 year old Woman Jailed for "Neglected Lawn"
Bloodied 70-year-old woman cuffed for having a brown lawn

Even though she is old, she could have had someone come out to maintain the lawn. Even a neihborhood kid would do it for a low price, maybe 20-30 bucks. Although jail is extreme, it lowers the value of neihboring houses. It causes more trouble to not maintain the lawn, then to arrest her to make a point.

Anyone else think how absurd this is when there are places in the midwest that are in drought?

Yeah, lets arrest an elderly woman for not watering her lawn when our neighbors are under order NOT to water their lawn.

[edit on 2/5/2008 by Griff]

reply to post by ArMaP


AND


reply to post by enjoies05


Good to know im not going crazy today. I wonder why this piece of news has popped up on two seperate occaisions as if its a new story?

Simple accident or planted story to generate ratings/readers?


I dont know, but its weird...

whatever happened to the chain gangs that saw prisoners being used to work for their keep while paying back their debt to society?

put our prisoners to work for old people like her and put them in the farmers fields so the illegals have no jobs left to attract them to come to into the usa/canada.

this poor old lady apparently has no family to care for her needs--dont the cops have sense anymore to realize this?a cop with this much sympathy and lack of common decency shouldn't be a cop.

Add my name to the list of remembering this story from last year. This is old news.

First though let me say that this story is brought back from the dead by the source. For what reason I am not sure, possibly their own anti law enforcement agenda or just to attract readers with more shock news. The source really needs to step out of its hole sometime and find something new to report on.

Why would she be arrested for her lawn not being kept up when it is winter? Last I recall Utah was in the winter months much like the rest of us. And according to the link her yard is not going to be growing much at all anyway and I doubt it will stay a nice green either. My lawn right now is brown and there is nothing I can do about it the cold tends to do that to my grass.
www.ksl.com...

While I do think it a bit stupid to have a law regarding ones lawn care being a home owner I can somewhat understand the idea of my home losing value due to another home.
A simple fine would have been in order.

I am also aware of an obvious anti law enforcement ideology common today. While I will say there are plenty of bad cops this story seems like an accident she feel causing her own injury. Could it have been avoided by not handcuffing her? Sure but that is not protocol and officers have been hurt by not following protocol on someone they felt was harmless.

I would have had a hard time doing what the officer did. But someone must have reported her for the offence because the police are not going to drive around looking for people’s yards to not be kept up. She must live in a neighborhood where her neighbor is more interested in getting their way than helping the woman out. I know of someone who was ticketed for having their grass to tall and someone reported them for it otherwise the police would not have bothered. Again yes there are bad cops but not all are.

This woman should look into getting their city ordinances changed seeing as they are set by the people living there and their city council. Maybe she should try for a spot on the council.

Raist

reply to post by yahn goodey


Just because she has no one to care for her needs does not excuse someone from breaking a law or in this case an ordinance. To say that would allow a great deal of real crime to be excused.

I’m not defending bad cops as I know there are plenty of them out there. But this cop may not have liked making the arrest any more than you or I. The story says he was going to give her a ticket but she refused. What are we to do as a society if someone refuses a ticket they are to be released as if nothing happened?

The problem here is not the cop in reality but the city officials who allow such asinine ordinances to be passed to begin with as well as the neighbor who reported her for the lawn being the way it was.

This is nothing more than a case of screwed if you do and screwed if you do not for the officer.

As mentioned above someone could have been ask or even volunteered to take care of the lawn for her. What we have here is failure to communicate on all sides.

Raist

Originally posted by ArMaP
reply to post by InSpiteOf

 

I thought the same, and we are right, this has appeared before.

Only in America - 70 year old Woman Jailed for "Neglected Lawn"
Bloodied 70-year-old woman cuffed for having a brown lawn

Thanks, yes this is old news, please continue your comments in the existing threads.

Thank you

Closed.