A 70-year-old woman was left bruised and bleeding following a clash with a police officer in western Utah state. The woman’s offence? Failing to water her front lawn properly.
The Utah Daily Herald reported that grandmother Betty Perry was jailed briefly after violence flared when a police officer issued her a ticket for failing to maintain the garden of her home in Orem, 72km south of Salt Lake City.
When she refused to give her name to the police officer, she was placed under arrest, triggering a scuffle that saw her fall to the ground, hurting her elbow, knee and leg.
“I’m very distraught over all this. I can’t believe this happened. Do you ever just wish you could start your day over and it would all be different?” Perry told the Herald, adding she was accidentally hit in the face with a handcuff while being arrested.
The newspaper quoted an Orem police spokesperson as saying Perry was released from jail after supervisors became aware of the situation. “There were other ways of finding out who she was and dealing with her violation short of taking her to jail,” he said.
The arresting officer had been placed on administrative leave while police reviewed the situation, the report said. — AFP