An 82-year-old Alabama woman Martha Louis Menefield was left in tears after being handcuffed, arrested and thrown in jail for failing to pay a $77.80 trash bill.
via: AL.com
“Ms. Menefield, we have a warrant for you,” the Valley officer tells Martha Louis Menefield in body cam video obtained by Law&Crime Network.
When the 82-year-old Menefield asks what the warrant is for, the officer replies, “not paying your trash bill.”
“So you’re going to handcuff me to take me to jail?” Menefield responds. “You’re arresting an 82-year-old woman.”
The incident drew nationwide outrage.
“I’m sorry, but the law’s the law, Ms. Menefield, the officer says.
The 82-year-old woman asks to see the warrant when the officer laughs and says, “I’m so serious, it’s a warrant. … I’m not joking.”
In the footage, the officer says Menefield got a letter from the city’s code enforcement a month earlier saying she didn’t pay her bill.
Menefield responds that her daughter handles her bill and that she believed she paid it.
“She screwed you on this one,” the officer says.
In a social media post, Valley Police Chief Mark Reynolds defended his officers, claiming the department’s hands were tied on whether to handcuff Menefield after a magistrate signed off on her arrest , adding that the 82-year-old woman “was treated respectfully by our officers in the performance of their duties.”
“While our officers can use their discretionary judgment on certain matters, the enforcement of an arrest warrant issued by the court and signed by a magistrate, is not one of them,” Reynolds said in the Facebook post. “Ms. Menefield was treated respectfully by our officers in the performance of their duties and was released on a bond as prescribed by the violation.”
