What has made this particular case news, however, is not that the owner was charged with theft nor that he had to pay a fine. Rather, it is the fact that the value of the electricity taken has been estimated to be four to five cents, and that the car owner was arrested and held for more than 12 hours.
Police in the community where this happened are taking some heat, being accused of overreach. So too is the school district for positioning itself as a crime victim. And the car owner himself has been portrayed as being difficult and argumentative. But while arrest and confinement may seem excessive for taking a nickel’s worth of anything, this is new territory. Prior thefts of electricity have generally been far more egregious – bypassing meters, running unauthorized cables, that sort of thing. Unauthorized charging of an electric car may be small potatoes by comparison, but, as the arresting officer commented, “Theft is theft.”
Although this case may break some new ground, it reminds us of a comparable case some years ago, in which a driver was taking gasoline from gas stations after hours simply by draining what little was left in the pump hoses. We no longer remember the outcome, but at the time, theft was theft.
