A Michigan woman was frisked, arrested, fingerprinted, and thrown in a jail cell—all for belatedly renewing her dog license.
Becky Rehr, the 47-year-old reckless lawbreaker in question, told the Kalamazoo Gazette that she had, indeed, waited three and a half months past the deadline to renew her license for her 11-year-old springer/border collie mix.
Then, several days after she renewed it, she received a notice that there was a warrant out for her arrest.
Rehr proceeded to the sheriff’s office, her $35 receipt for the renewal in hand. Upon her arrival, she was arrested and towed off to the county jail to have her fingerprints and mug shot taken.
“They frisked me and put me in this intake cell with all these inmates in orange jumpsuits,” Rehr told the Associated Press. She said she had had “every intention” of taking caring of the license, “But with the end of the school year and my job, it just totally got put on the back burner.”
The police held her for three hours—all while her 14-year-old daughter waited, abandoned in the car.
A hearing for misdemeanor charges was initially scheduled for Tuesday, for which she faced up to 90 days in jail and/or up to a $100 fine. Charges against Rehr were then dropped on Monday.
“No court and total dismissal!!!!!” the jubilant Rehr wrote in an email to the Kalamazoo Gazette. “I don’t have to go to court and I get my bond money back. I’m free!!!!”
“We prefer not for this stuff to go to court,” County animal control Director Steve Lawrence told The Associated Press. “It’s just a $10 license. For some reason, some people like to make it hard for themselves.”
Ah, yes–it’s definitely “people” making it difficult, not the frisk-happy county animal control.
