97-year-old handcuffed, jailed for unpaid traffic ticket(in Texas)

97-year-old handcuffed, jailed for unpaid traffic ticket

Wednesday, April 28, 2004 Posted: 10:49 AM EDT (1449 GMT)



HIGHLAND PARK, Texas (AP) -- Police say they had no choice but to go by the book when they handcuffed a 97-year-old woman and took her to jail for failing to pay a traffic ticket.

Harriette Kelton was arrested last week after officers stopped her for having an expired registration and inspection sticker and realized there was a warrant for her arrest for failing to pay a traffic ticket.

Kelton, a former schoolteacher who has lived in the Dallas suburb for decades, was in police custody for about two hours before her attorney arrived and she was released on her own recognizance.

"Our real beef with this is that no real judgment was displayed or actually carried out in this incident," said Kelton's son Dr. Phil Kelton Jr., a plastic reconstructive surgeon with Baylor University Medical Center.

But police spokesman Detective Randy Millican said the officers had no choice but to arrest Kelton's mother.

"A warrant begins with the words 'You are hereby commanded to arrest,"' Millican said. "How do you decide who do you arrest and who you don't? How about at age 90 but not at 91 and up? How about between 17 and 20?"

more......
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/Southwest/04/28/elderly.woman.ap/index.html

She was probably a real threat to the police officers.

:eyes:

of a local politician on a similar warrant, she, sans handcuffs, was driven to jail in her own car by her minister.

But police spokesman Detective Randy Millican said the officers had no choice but to arrest Kelton's mother

I hope their mothers are proud of them.

If this story doesn't make you outraged, read the column posted just above by FeebMaster.

An excerpt:

She was blind.

She needed her 94-year-old mother to come to her rescue.

And in the middle of the dogfight -- in which Eunice Crowder was pepper-sprayed, Tasered and
knocked to the ground by Portland's courageous men in blue -- the poor woman's fake right eye
popped out of its socket and was bouncing around in the dirt.

How vicious and ugly can the Portland police get? Ladies and gentlemen, I think we have a
winner. This 2003 case is so blatant, the use of force so excessive, the threat of liability so
intimidating that the city just approved a $145,000 settlement.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Not to mention the murder of James Perez, who was shot dead 24 seconds after a traffic stop in North Portland for having failed to use his turn signal.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
THIRD UNARMED AFRICAN AMERICAN KILLED BY PORTLAND POLICE IN 25 MONTHS

On Sunday, March 28, Portland Police shot and killed James Jahar Akbar Perez, 28, an unarmed African American man, after pulling him over for failure to signal a turn. Officer Jason Sery (#36878) fired three rounds into Perez' car after some kind of altercation, but witnesses say Perez never even took off his seat belt (KOIN-TV, 3/29/04).

Perez is the third young, unarmed African American person shot by police in the last 3 years, following Byron Hammick on February 22, 2002 and Kendra James on May 5, 2003.

http://www.portlandcopwatch.org/perezshooting.html

We've got a big problem.

isn't there some other way. I get billed when I don't pay shit.

Welcome to Bushevik-Occupied Imperial Amerika. Let another couple generations die off and the successors to these cops will be making the same commentary as they drag our children off to the Gulags.

no doubt

people who break laws get arrested.

I hope that it brings her what ever the needed attention might be...

What we know is
1) she failed (to remember?) to pay traffic ticket.
2) she failed to have her car inspected.
3) she failed to keep the registration--as in license plates--current

It seems to me she is having something of a pattern of not getting things done. Maybe she is having trouble financially, maybe she is having trouble with her memory, maybe trouble with medications, maybe something else, maybe nothing...

But maybe, this little jolt from the "blue" will help her son the doctor make sure to get to the bottom of things.

But handcuffing an old lady is bullshit.

the Land of the Free.

And the bastards come arrest you for a fkkking traffic ticket. This is nothing less than irrational.

The lady was on the Today show and she doesn't seem too pissed. I will always maintain that this was egregious and unnecessary.

how many calls were delayed due to this arrest i wonder?

:crazy:

peace

And do a full body cavity search. Them's the rules, ain't they?

Talk about the banality of evil...

I knew a guy at Perkins Theologic Seminary who was arrested for driving at night-while black.

I've had occasion to meet several in my 10 years spent living on the border of Oaklawn and Highland Park.

I lied to one about my name when he pulled me over and he let it slide. I've met some others and they've always been real nice.

I also know a couple of friends that got arrested in Highland Park at different times, and they were impressed with the super nice HP Police facilities and the fact that the HP Police gives them a choice of fast food restaurant food for meals. When you get thrown in the slammer downtown Dallas all you get is a lousy bologna sandwich and some warm kool aid. (I speak from traffic ticket arrest experience regarding downtown)

I'm surprised at this story and 10 to 1 not ALL HP police would have brought that little lady in I bet.

Some cops are royal assholes and some cops are good hearted wonderful people....

That most horrible of crimes.

patently guilty.

help make sure her vehicle registration and inspection were up to date?

In San Antonio, they have an annual round-up of persons with unpaid tickets. They want and need the money from the fines.

I suspect the HP police are burned out on dealing with rich kids and their rich parents and their attitudes of privilege. I wonder if this LOL lived very far from Cheney's former home.

:)

It's too important.

I'm surprised the Texas book doesn't require that the police beat up 97-year-olds.

Arrest for not paying a traffic ticket?

This is a fun way the counties get extra bucks -- ONE unpaid ticket and you have a warrant out for your arrest -- ONE.

My sister's therapist got nailed and was also handcuffed and jailed. Luckily she had the $$$ to get herself herself out of jail.

And THAT is what it is all about. Shaking down folks for nice sums of money. It's something like $200-300 to "buy" yourself out of the mess. It must be so nice for "crime fighters" to have nothing else to do but arrest people for a stupid parking ticket. :eyes:

My sister lives in Lewisville and during my visits I see a lot of folks pulled over for "driving while brown". In fact, the last two weeks I was there I didn't see a single white person pulled over.

I'm sorry, but you can have Texas. :shrug:

ticket she knew nothing about. One of her "friends" gave her name instead of her own when she was ticketed for having a dog run loose in town. We were living in Houston at the time, and when we moved back to Odessa a couple of years later, she was pulled over for a cracked taillight. She was arrested over the unpaid dog ticket (again, she couldn't have known about it, since it was really to one of her "friends") and her two children who were in the car were sent to Children's Protective Service and the car towed while she went to jail. Because it was past 6 pm, she spent the night in jail before being fingerprinted and mugged and getting her phone call to her mom and me. That's when we found out about the kids at CPS and the car towed. We had her tuition receipts from Houston and the address on the ticket here checked out to her "friend". Only then was she released, although the $500 lawyer's bill was still on us, as well as towing and impoundment!

Hey, we're tough on criminals in Texas! Especially 5'2" tall women who weigh 100 pounds, young or old!

can a woman be let off by a jury after murdering her children, and then claiming God made her do it.

Meanwhile, they're arresting 97 YEAR OLDS! For parking tickets that too!?!?!????

:wtf:

God, I will tell my friends, if I ever plan on moving to Texas, just shoot me right then!

I couldn't bring myself to do that to someone that old. If I was the officer I would have done the 'right thing' (I'm a democrat, thats what I have been taught to always do) and paid the damn parking ticket and bought her damn sticker for her car and not wasted my flipin' time with arresting her when I could be busting some drug dealer or terrarist.

Hell you might get shot doing it.

better to get whacked by an old womans purse I guess...... :)

I wonder how far Highland Park is from Crawford. I wonder if there is any correlation between staying the course and going by the book.

My estmation is that they are about 125-140 miles apart. (I used to drive I35 south alot.)

It is the sort of place where "nice" cops escort and harrass people who aren't the right color even when they live there! Such nice cops have even been known to knock you upside the head for getting "smart" with them and questioning being stopped. How nice!

Highland Park is an EXCLUSIVE neighborhood.

Who does this ole biddy think she is? She doesn't have to follow traffic laws like other state residents? Her sons don't either, I guess...

Her other son, David, is a state district judge. He said it would be inappropriate for him to discuss the arrest.

A plastic surgeon employed at a leading teaching hospital and a state district judge can't take a moment to make sure 97 year old mumsy is legal to be behind the wheel.

10 to 1 they are Republicans, who are destroying this country in the name of *FAMILY*!!