Unbelievable! Woman is handcuffed and arrested for a late video rental

Libertarian Party ^ | Feb 12, 2002

[toenail]

In other news, the Libertarian Party national HQ is making progress on its goal to displace the Republican Party as "The Stupid Party."

[toenail]

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[riley1992]

You think that arrest was a good thing?

[billbears]

Sad to say but when I was in college I had a warrant out for my arrest for a non returned video. 5 or 6 years later, I applied for a job, got the job, and the manager was nice enough to even tell me about the warrant. Went to the little podunk town, was arrested, fingerprinted, and had to post bond to get out. Three weeks later at the court date, the charge was dropped. Why? The video store had burned down and gone out of business 5 years earlier. What made it worse was that I didn't even rent the video, my roommate at the time did. Still not talking to that slime

[biblewonk]

Wasn't this already posted once?

[Destructor]

I don't believe it. What is the source?

[My Favorite Headache]

C'mon Joe....this is just insane.People get slaps on the wrist for a million times worse...this is a video rental.10.00 video rental. Terrorists are making bail and this woman has her life wrecked because of "Sleepers", does this make sense? No.Just another sign of the dumbing down of America.

[harpseal]

Clearly if the woman did not return the rented property she should face some penalty like paying the full cost of the video plus a reasonable amount of interest. This is at most petty theft and IMHO it should not be a matter for the criminal courts period. It is a dispute between the rentor end the owner of the property. Unless fraud is a part of the charge there is no criminal act by anyone.

Stay well - stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktown

[hopespringseternal]

You think that arrest was a good thing?

It depends on whether the video store made any attempt to get the tape back (other than giving her a police record). By failing to return the video, she effectively stole it.

However, if the video store didn't do anything to contact her, then the law is just plain stupid.

Fact: In Texas, there are people with arrest warrants for overdue library books.

[AlligatorEyes]

Of course the video store could never make a mistake.

I had a friend who rented a video and returned it. The store called and threatened arrest. My friend told them the video had been returned. She was arrested in the middle of the night and spent the rest of the night in jail. When it finally got to court my friend proved that she had returned the video and SURPRISE, the store found it on their shelf.

It was good for 5k to my friend.

[kidd]

She rented "Sleepers"?

She had it coming to her.

[GuillermoX]

So people should be able to steal the property of others simply because they rented it for one night? Sounds like a pretty left wing position to me.

The next logical position is "video rental companies make billions, what's one stolen video, they are making obscene profits anyways".

[Cable225]

During the routine license check, police discovered an outstanding warrant for Cohen, dating back to 1997

As much as the article would like to make you believe the video was 2 days late, we are talking about 5 years here.
And we all know that the video store sent her notices, invalidated her card, and made numerous attempts to collect their rental fee.
After getting no satisfaction, they probably took her to small claims court (much like you would to collect bad checks) which she probably blew off, resulting in a bench warrant.
When she was pulled over, the officer cross-checked her, came up with the bench warrant record, and hauled her in.
It is extremely unlikely the officer has any idea what the root cause of the warrant was.

We all know that's what happened, it even states in the article she was pulled in because of the warrant, not the video. That doesn't make New Hampshire a police state, it just makes this lady an idiot for not paying her overdue rental fee.

Cohen said she had no memory of renting the video, and said she had never received any notice from the store that the video was overdue.

I'm certain.

[auggy]

If, she was never notified of the late movie, she should have not been arrested. If, there was proof she was notified , preferably more than once, it is stealing. Theft is what she should be charged with.

[Ptaz]

If there is proof that there was no attempt to contact the woman, then it's a stupid law. If she ignored any notices, then she's not better than a petty thief and deserved what she got. This is no better than shoplifting.

[toenail]

"You think that arrest was a good thing?"

The national LP fritters away their relevance by issuing such vapid press releases.

[brazos.357]

...and we'll execute them as soon as we find those library stealin' scum! I have been waiting 7 years for that copy of Ole Yeller!

[riley1992]

So people should be able to steal the property of others simply because they rented it for one night? Sounds like a pretty left wing position to me.

Please be so kind as to point out where I said that. Thanks so much in advance.

[riley1992]

So you posted this not to discuss the article, but simply to bash Libertarians. Bravo. You may have just garnered the stupid post of the day award.