From CNN:

A 73-year-old diabetic grandmother and church elder who fled Katrina’s floodwaters for the safety of a hotel ended up in prison instead for more than two weeks — all over a bite of food. Police in this New Orleans suburb arrested Merlene Maten the day after the hurricane on charges she took $63.50 in goods from a looted deli. Though never before in trouble with the law, her bail was set at a stiff $50,000 and she was shipped away to a state penitentiary. Family and eyewitnesses insist Maten’s prison odyssey was unwarranted, claiming she only had gone to her car to get some sausage to eat when officers cuffed her in frustration, unable to catch younger looters at a nearby store.

Good call on the cops’ part. If a 73-year-old grandmother has the audacity to retrieve food from a cooler in her car trunk, and she wants to elude the long arm of the law, she had better be swiftfooted and armed. I mean, that level of naivete on her part is just inexcusable, isn’t it? So two weeks’ hard time, yeah, that should teach her. And that’s just for starters. The septugenarian sausage bandit still faces a court hearing, and possibly a trial. Good to know that justice is finally back on track in the Gulf states.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 16th, 2005 at 4:41 pm by Rogier van Bakel and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.