5 Stupid Reasons People Actually Got Arrested
We’ve all seen those clickbait headlines about people who were arrested for ridiculous reasons. Most of the time, however, there’s more to the story than what a catchy Facebook post or meme alludes to. No, a student wasn’t arrested for simply farting in class -- he was turning off other students’ computers and being disruptive in other, non-flatulent ways.
And while we could have a debate on what warrants an arrestable offence, these five scenarios will leave you wondering how in the hell anyone could even think a crime was committed in the first place.
Man Is Arrested For Reading Cheating Wife’s Emails On Their Shared Computer
Oh, the sanctity of marriage. Two loving souls coming together as one, sharing in all things emotional, financial and uncomfortably spacial. It’s a beautiful blending of two lives in glorious harmony that can only be demonstrated by a couple of individuals who have completely committed themselves to one another.
Well, at least until one of them decides to start rubbing their naughty bits on a third party.
Suspicions of infidelity aren’t always valid, but one Leon Walker did, in fact, suspect his spouse of outside shenanigans, so he decided to investigate. Not by way of anything drastic like hiring a private investigator or consulting a medium -- but by simply opening up their shared laptop and reading her email.
“That’s an invasion of privacy!” you might be screaming, while slamming your hand down on the desk. It’s probably worth noting, however, that she was actually cheating. Now, before you go exclaiming, “But still!” you should probably know that it was with her second husband, a man known to be physically abusive. And the reason this was so significant to Walker was because his wife had a child from her first marriage whose safety he feared for, given husband #2’s propensity for violence.
Pixabay
So a fear of this, but with one more child and way more trauma than we care to depict.
After Ms. Walker found out her current husband had shared those affair-confirming emails with her son's father, she had him arrested—claiming malicious hacking instead of, you know, opening up what we assume to be a bookmarked Hotmail page on the computer that they shared. But maybe it wasn’t that easy, and he actually did go all ninja-hacking-sleuth, snooping around, and eventually finding the sticky note she stored all of her passwords on.
It’s a conundrum, to be sure. On one hand, you have a child’s physical safety to consider— and on the other, the expectation of privacy on a computer you share with your soulmate.
Mom Takes Away Daughter’s Phone As Punishment, Gets Arrested For Stealing
Parenting nowadays is hard, especially as far as discipline is concerned. It seems that you can’t so much as look at your kid cross-eyed without being accused of abuse. And that can result in certain behavioral issues, or basically turn your children into the Saperstein siblings from Parks and Recreation.
But we’re not here to debate disciplinary dos and don’ts. Common sense says some forms of repercussion for bad behavior are necessary to ensure your kids don’t grow up to be unimaginable jerks. Which is probably what Michigan mom Jodie May was thinking when she confiscated her daughter’s cell phone after finding out her kid got in trouble at school.
That seems like a pretty reasonable approach—your child misbehaves, you take away a privilege. It doesn’t involve beatings or spankings or pinning them down and letting a gross-ass loogie hang inches above their face while you demand absolute compliance. You’re just taking away their ability to Snapchat their friends or play Pokémon GO for a while. Big deal.
Pixabay
“So I’m supposed to … what, read?”
Until the cops show up, and haul your ass in for larceny. Apparently, when May’s ex-husband found out about her choice of punishment, he called the cops and said the phone belonged to him, so she was technically stealing it. The cops agreed and arrested her, then the prosecutor agreed and brought up charges, and May found herself in court.
Fortunately, before things got really stupid, “new evidence” came to light and it turned out the ex-husband didn’t technically own the phone after all, so the charges were dropped at the last minute. Which is great, as long as you ignore the false report and lack of fact-checking that started the whole damn thing.
Man Wearing “I’m With Stupid” T-Shirt Was Arrested For Public Nuisance
Look, we’re not under any sort of illusion that politics are in any way civil today ... or that they have ever been, really. But in 2018, we kind of expect that unless you’re living under an oppressive dictatorship, certain things are tolerated. Hell, we still live in a society where idiots in KKK hoods are allowed to organize a public rally, so that line of “can and can’t do” must be pretty generous.
Or we assume that’s what Iain Fogerty of Australia thought when he wore an “I’m With Stupid” shirt opposing campaigners for the Liberal National Party.
To be fair, it did have that finger-pointy thing, showing very specifically who he thought was stupid while he stood next to them. And apparently, this was clearly over the line for police, who decided that they needed to dispatch ten officers to arrest the guy, all of which were hilariously cautious about on which side of Fogerty they stood.
Timmy M’lad on Twitter
Now, we’re not pros on what constitutes lawful protest, and we’re certain the legalities vary from country to country. But if you’re going to arrest a guy based on his attempt to oppose a political movement with a goddamn t-shirt, you may need to revisit the very concept of freedom of speech. Even if it’s not the most clever form of opposition.
Girl Being Bullied In School For How She Smelled Sprayed Perfume, Was Arrested
Kids in school can be the worst. Fortunately, bullying is now at the forefront of things we just don’t tolerate in school anymore. It’s no longer a rite of passage or something our kids are expected to deal with. And while we’re far from perfect on dealing with the issue, there’s a pretty clear consensus that it’s not something that should be an accepted part of our children’s social interactions.
But it still occurs, and many a child and parent and teacher and administrator have to deal with that reality. For one girl in a Texas school, it meant constant ridicule, with students harassing her and telling her, “You smell.”
Upon hearing this, the student sought to rectify the situation, so she pulled out some perfume and sprayed herself. When the kids who were bullying her started giving her more crap and saying it smelled worse, the teacher called the police—on the girl being bullied.
Pixabay
“We have another perfume spraying incident. Let’s move out!”
She was hauled out of class and had to show up in court for a misdemeanor charge. For spraying perfume, because other kids were being dicks and giving her grief for something that may not have even existed in the first place. Which ... wait, is perfume illegal in Texas? Or just in schools? Are spray bottles banned because they think you might be the next Scarecrow from Batman Begins?
In any case, it all sounds remarkably stupid.
Scientists Don’t Predict Earthquake, Found Guilty Of Manslaughter
Science is complicated, which is why until we get our PhDs in science stuff we’re focusing our efforts on things like potato cannons and hamburgers. Meanwhile, there are real scientists out there doing amazing things like predicting environmental phenomena and ensuring the technology is in place for you to read this article from your phone.
The people who predict Mother Nature’s fury have it the worst, because they live in a world of chaos theory, which is way too complicated of a subject for us to go into. In short, it means yes, there are patterns and statistics on what nature throws at us, but things are inherently unpredictable and can change at a moment’s notice because of reasons.
That’s why your 10-day weather forecast changes every two days, or why tornado sirens go off when no funnel clouds are present, or why goddammit, it wasn’t supposed to rain today. The same holds true for the folks who study earthquakes. There are things happening beneath the earth’s surface that we don’t fully comprehend, which includes the people who study this sort of thing for a living.
Pixabay
It’s worth reiterating: 100% reliable earthquake predicting machines do not exist.
Which is why it was a bit shocking that multiple scientists in Italy were found guilty of manslaughter when they didn’t accurately predict an earthquake in 2009 that resulted in the deaths of hundreds.
By all measures, the seismic activity they were seeing was not indicative of anything catastrophic. But the earth doesn’t always lend itself to predictability, and on that day it decided to ravage the country with death and destruction. But because the people in charge of trying to foresee that sort of doom got it wrong, despite it being impossible to do so with 100% certainty, they were found responsible for the deaths of over 300 people.
Fortunately, they were eventually acquitted of wrongdoing, but still, it seems like a group of well-intentioned people were held responsible for something like the reaction of a cornered badger.
Remind us to never predict the outcome of anything ever again.
