Taking the law to extremes: Man arrested for stabbing watermelon

[thisnumbersdisconnected]

ABC News: Connecticut Man Arrested After Stabbing Watermelonhttp://abcnews.go.com/Weird/wireStory/connecticut-man-arrested-stabbing-watermelon-24563903http://abcnews.go.com/Weird/wireStory/connecticut-man-arrested-stabbing-watermelon-24563903

A 49-year-old Connecticut man faces threatening charges after a woman told police he stabbed a watermelon "in a passive-aggressive manner."

The Register Citizen of Torrington reports Carmine Cervellino of Thomaston was arraigned Monday on charges of threatening and disorderly conduct. He was released after posting a $500 bond.

Police say the woman had gone to police on July 4 to report finding drugs, including marijuana, in Cervellino's tool box. He was not arrested.

They say she later returned home to find the watermelon on the counter with a butcher's knife in it. She reported that Cervellino then entered the room and began carving the watermelon. She called the incident passive-aggressive and menacing.

What's their evidence going to be? That he had not intent to eat the watermelon?

 

[Gina B]

I am familiar with this form of passive aggressiveness and it is, in my opinion, just as threatening as words. Sometimes, words are less threatening as they are a quick release of anger, whereas a "meaningful display of action" may be much more intense and scary.
However - prove it, right? Perhaps he admitted it, or did so to a point. Those who may-say the police may be missing an important mental health and/or domestic violence aspect to the story.
That is what is often awful in stories like this. Signs may be there, but the law cannot do anything without public outcry. Unfortunately, it wouldn't be as bad if more people had trust and faith in law enforcement - if corruption was not so rampant it would be so.

 

[thisnumbersdisconnected]

Yeah, that was kinda my point, Gina. I'm sure he intended it as a threat, but how are they going to prove it? I'm pretty sure he didn't admit it. Like most jurisdictions, if someone calls the police about an incident of domestic violence, somebody is going to jail -- usually it's the husband. That's because it is usually the husband who does something that deserves it, but there are cases where police take the word of a vindictive woman who's unhappy that her life sucks, too.

I think this typifies the difficulties the police have in trying to sort this kind of thing out. It's also a direct result of our turning corrections and the criminal investigative process into industries instead of using them as the justice system for which they were originally designed.