An electric car owner has been arrested and
detained for 15 hours for “stealing” around 5 cents worth of electricity
from a middle school. Kaveh Kamooneh plugged an extension cable from
his Nissan Leaf into an exterior outlet at Chamblee Middle School in
Georgia while watching his 11-year-old son play tennis. Minutes later, a
Chamblee police officer appeared and warned him that he would be
charged for theft for taking electricity from the school. Kamooneh only
charged his vehicle for 20 minutes, but he was arrested 11 days later
after the initial officer filed a report and sought an arrest warrant.
Kamooneh hadn’t sought permission from the school to
charge his car, and Chamblee Police claim he had previously been advised
he was not allowed on the school tennis courts without permission. In
an interview with Atlanta's Channel 11 News,
Kamooneh likens his charging to plugging in a cellphone at a coffee
shop. "People charge laptops or cell phones at public outlets all the
time, and no one's ever been arrested for that,” says Kamooneh. Chamblee
Police Sergeant Ernesto Ford is sticking by the arrest, noting that “a
theft is a theft,” but Kamooneh plans to fight the charges. While
electric cars are slowly going mainstream, the case does highlight the
grey areas around simply plugging in at outlets without consent, common
sense policing, and the need for more free charging points.
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