Tomato Run-ins With the Law
By Vanessa Richins
Sometimes tomatoes figure into stories about criminal deeds and mistaken identities.
We start with a strange little story from Watsontown, PA.
Evidently Jade London’s weapon of choice when she attacked a parked car was a tomato plant.
On November 9th, 2008, she purportedly rubbed a tomato plant all over a parked car, which resulted in scratched on the car. She also wrote obscene words. She was able to cause over $500 in damages with that tomato plant, and received a third degree misdemeanor charge for the incident.
I am just a bit perplexed by this turn of events. I haven’t been able to find out more information as to whether they know why she did it. Even more mystifying is the use of a tomato plant. While they are sturdier than a lot of other plants, they are hardly typical weapons in the least. Perhaps it was simply handy? Maybe the victim hated (gasp!) tomatoes? Your guess is as good as mine.
For the other recent story, we travel to Shieldaig, England. A 79 year old widow named Lulu Matheson got a surprise visit from police officers, who stormed into her home with drug sniffing dogs and taking samples of what they had thought were marijuana plants.
Even though it was evident that she really had tomato plants, the police still searched the whole house and taking parts of the plants for testing. They even impounded the family dogs.
Her son, Gus Matheson, says that the family received no sort of apology for the mistaken drug bust. He has filed a complaint to the local police department.
This isn’t the first time I have heard of tomato plants being mistaken for marijuana from a distance. Be careful with those grow lights!
Have you heard of any more stories like these?
