Roadside dumping already has its own costs, such as blight and cleanup. But one Texas resident said a damaged chair sitting in the grass led to a troubling encounter with law enforcement.
It included a littering ticket, a threat of arrest, and a required court appearance over an item they said was never theirs.
Here's what to know
The motorist told the r/legaladvice subreddit that they took a back route near Vidor, Texas, on a drive from DeRidder, Louisiana, to Houston. They stopped after noticing what looked like an antique chair in the grass by the roadside, noting that they got out to inspect it because they like taking on small restoration projects.
The stop quickly became a police encounter. The driver said they determined the chair was too damaged to salvage and were heading back to the car when an officer arrived. The cop asked why they had stopped and whether they had hit the chair, and told them to take it or receive a littering ticket.
They later wrote that their dashcam footage showed the chair was already sitting in the grass before the officer pulled up, but they did not mention the video during the encounter.
Most replies focused on the same advice of fighting the citation using the footage.
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"Bring the dashcam footage, tell the judge what happened, and then offer it into evidence/ask the judge to allow you to play the footage," one commenter wrote.
Much of the discussion centered on the burden of having to return to court over a roadside encounter involving no wrongdoing. The driver said they sensed there was also a racial component to the story.
"My concern is that this is Vidor, and as an African American, I don't trust being in that area alone given the city's past history," the driver wrote.
Commenters weighed not only the legal question surrounding the citation but also the stress and perceived risk involved in returning to challenge it. Most were sympathetic to the original poster's concerns about going back to the area, which media outlets have covered for its history of residents openly calling for separation of races at least as recent as 2006, and some posters shared startling anecdotes.
What can be done?
Among the more detailed responses was a suggestion to let the prosecution go first and use the dashcam footage only if it became necessary.
"Show up, prosecution goes first, cop will likely either admit he did not see you actually discard the item, or will lie and say you did," a poster wrote. "If he lies and says he saw you discard the item, show the video."
The original poster said they had failed to connect with Vidor PD's clerk's office, but they had taken some precautionary measures.
"I've talked to a few attorneys from Beaumont and explained my fear of going alone," they revealed. "They said they can show up on my behalf, which gives me breathing room, at least."
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