An electric car owner has been arrested and detained for 15 hours for ’stealing’ around 5 cents worth of electricity. Kaveh Kamooneh ‘stole’ the electricity from Chamblee Middle School in Georgia as his 11-year-old son played tennis nearby. He did so by plugging an extension cable from his Nissan Leaf into an exterior outlet at the school.
But he was caught minutes later when a Chamblee police officer appeared and warned him that he would be charged for theft by taking electricity from the school. Although Kamooneh had only charged his car for 20 minutes, he was arrested 11 days after the officer filed a report and sought an arrest warrant.
Chamblee Police Sergeant Ernesto Ford is sticking by the arrest, stating that “a theft is a theft”, but Mr Kamooneh is planning to fight the charges. Although Mr Kamooneh had not asked the school for permission, he felt that charging his car at the school was just the same as charging your phone or laptop at public outlets.
He said: “no-one’s ever been arrested for that.” His arrest highlights the difficulty many electric car owners face in finding readily available charging points.
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