Louisville Police Officer Cody Chapelle has been suspended for 13 days after he gave a ticket to a seven-year-old boy who accidentally threw a ball that hit his personal vehicle. He charged the child with criminal mischief in the third degree.
The boy was playing ball when he turned criminal with an overthrow.
To complete this bizarre scene, Chapelle reported yelled at the boy’s mother about being a bad parent. Police Chief Robert White, however, felt it was more a matter of being a bad cop than a bad kid.
Here is the Kentucky criminal code provision:
512.040 Criminal mischief in the third degree.
(1)
(2)
A person is guilty of criminal mischief in the third degree when:
(a) Having no right to do so or any reasonable ground to believe that he has such right, he intentionally or wantonly defaces, destroys or damages any property; or
(b) He tampers with property so as knowingly to endanger the person or property of another.
Criminal mischief in the third degree is a Class B misdemeanor.
Source: WHAS
Jonathan Turley
I thought police SOP with unruly children under ten was a good old fashioned tasering. I am pretty upset that this cop let this kid off with a just a ticket. Nothing like a reoccurring muscle spasm to remind him he needs to work on his pitching mechanics more often!
I am always interested in how individuals with power over others use or misuse that power, especially when anger is involved.
The act of issuing a ticket to a child takes a few minutes … time enough for reflection on one’s chosen course of action.
Yelling at the child’s mother and expressing the opinion that her parenting skills are in question while giving said ticket indicates a further lack of emotional control on the officer’s part.
One wonders if this particular off-duty cop would have acted in the same manner had the offending party been a man rather than a woman and a child.
From the cited source: “The little boy’s family had no comment about this case, neither did their attorney.” The power has shifted.
In my opinion this LEO should be fired. My reason is that he showed such an extraordinary lack of judgment, that having him on the force represents a danger to the community. That he was having a bad day is no excuse. That he had recently received a commendation is no defense for his abysmally stupid actions. This type of officer is an example of how Amadou Diallo was shot 42 times for reaching for his wallet. The fact that this case didn’t entail a really tragic outcome, is overridden by the fact that it exposed a total lack of judgment on the LEO’s part.
Ram,
Wow, what an interesting site. Scary indeed. It needs to be more user friendly. I mean, lists of cops names. Lists of cities. Stuff like that.
Still, the site is very good.
I went to another site link from there, and from there, to this site:
http://icanstalku.com/
The website is called I Can Stalk You. It teaches people about how to disable a “geotag” (never heard of it before) from your IPhone or digital camera BEFORE you uphold photos from it to the internet.
Apparently, the geotags tell where you are located when you shoot a photo by leaving latitude and longitude information that then appears on the internet (but you cannot see it on your IPhone. So if you have shot a photo of your house and uploaded it to Twitter, the exact location of your house is revealed online!
EGADS!!!
Anyway, there is a treasure-trove of info (albeit scary) there.
Thanks.
Frank
Folks have to keep up with these creeps. But the problem is the creeps take retribution if you try to stop their abuse.
🙁
RAM: Awesome. Thanks! I’m going to make it a regular stop along the superhighway (no speeding, of course)
mespo: Making a 7 year old out to be a criminal is evil.
Lot’s of SS jackboots got commendations.
Call me unimpressed with evil doers giving evil doers awards.
“There needs to be an online clearing house that lists all these outrages by cops. ”
There is, and looking at this every day will scarre the hell out of you……..
http://www.injusticeeverywhere.com/
Chief Robert White has been active lately in suspending Louisville Police Officers. We elected a new mayor in November, 2010 who was recently sworn in as Mayor in early January, 2011. The local press has been covering the Chief’s actions recently against Cody, another officer for sending nude photos of himself and a female for arresting people falsely. Several black eyes for Louisville’s finest.
http://www.mizozo.com/images/item_images/16000/15969_src.jpg
I thought it weird thag the reprimand letter included mention of a lack of damage to the officers car. Say there had been damage…that still doesn’t fit the
“…he intentionally or wantonly defaces…” part of the code.
I’d like to hear what the cop thought he was doing at the time.
More from Chief White (USA Today):
“One of our greatest attributes we have as police officers is common sense,” White tells the newspaper. Chapelle “showed absolutely no common sense.”
He calls the ticket-writing incident “absolutely absurd.”
Chapelle’s attorney says he will appeal the suspension.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2011/01/cop-suspended-for-giving-a-7-year-old-a-ticket-in-ball-throwing-incident/1
BIL,mespo & frank:
I wonder if there is any way Professor Turley’s blog host could automatically append a “Black Label” warning on Tootie’s rants?
OS/mepso,
There should be another warning as well.
“Do not use if you are or plan to get pregnant. Do not use if you are breastfeeding.”
I have been convinced for some time that “Tootie” is actually a software program that generates random sentences based on words input into it. The program is very clever and does produce sentences that appear coherent but make no sense when strung together. It wouldn’t pass the Turing test but it is an excellent example of programing skill.
OS:
Like football betting lines: “Tootie — For Entertainment Purposes Only.”
I like that! Good thought.
C’mon now, mespo, you know Tootie does not let facts get in the way of a good rant. We need to keep her around for entertainment value. Unfortunately, she represents a substantial percentage of the population; the non-thinking but reactive part. I read the comments about this incident in the referenced article. All too many do the exact same thing that caused them to upset about with Officer Chapelle. Run mouth without engaging brain.
“The people of Louisville need to drive this cop off the police force. Clearly he doesn’t have a clue. It reminds of how serial murderers often tortured animals. These little events could very well indicate a monster cop in the making.”
*************
Nothing like a little hyperbole there, Tootie. Do you actually read the foolishness you write. Cop gets mad and charges a 7 year old in a misguided effort to get a parent to reprimand the kid and you compare this bad judgment with being a serial killer. By the way, the cop has been commended for his service in the past and this appears to be an aberrational act that just cost him 3 weeks pay.
This example of zealotry is why you cannot be taken seriously.
The people of Louisville need to drive this cop off the police force. Clearly he doesn’t have a clue. It reminds of how serial murderers often tortured animals. These little events could very well indicate a monster cop in the making.
I mean, give a kid with a ball a criminal record? Please. That is nuts.
There needs to be an online clearing house that lists all these outrages by cops. Then citizens can keep an eye on these jerks and make sure their departments don’t get another city’s rejects if these bozo’s move around.
I’m thinking the name of the clearing house could be: Stupid Things Cops Do, or Fuzz Watch. Maybe: Smoke That Bear Watch.
Listed would be the cop’s name, the offense, what department, city, precinct, what became of him (suspended, got away with murder, rape, assault, brutality, etc), got fired, and where he or she now works if they remained in law enforcement.
A lot of creepy cops think its funny to abuse people. It’s time to hold their feet to the fire.
Not literally! (sheesh)