From Deseret News archives:
Orem woman is jailed for dry yard
She says officer 'brutally abused me'; he is placed on paid leave
Betty Perry opened her door Friday at 9 a.m. to find an officer from the Orem Neighborhood Preservation Unit asking about the scruffy, brown grass in her front yard.
When she said she couldn't afford to water her lawn at 1568 S. 800 East the officer started to write her a ticket for violating the city's nuisance ordinance. The ordinance requires residents to keep a maintained, live yard.
Perry didn't want to give her name, which could be obtained through property records, and asked to go back inside to call her son. As she tried to leave, the officer grabbed her arm and slapped on the first handcuff.
In the scuffle, Perry tripped on the step and fell into the door frame, scraping her nose and elbows and leaving behind spots of blood on the door, and on her shirt and pants, said Orem Police Lt. Doug Edwards. Perry said the officer struck her in the face with the cuffs while he was restraining her.
"He's just trying to cover his tracks," she said late Thursday night. "He brutally abused me ... and for what? Because I wouldn't give him my name?"
As the officer applied the handcuffs, Perry began to protest.
"What are you doing? What's going on? Talk to me?" she said. But the officer didn't respond to her questions.
As she went down, she tucked her hands under her stomach to keep from being handcuffed, which meant the officer had to pull her hands out, causing more scrapes, according to Edwards.
"I don't think anybody should be treated like that," she told reporters as she pointed to black and blue marks on her wrists from the handcuffs. "I've never even been stopped (by police) before, and that's the funny thing."
Perry said the officer called for backup, then put her in a hot police car still wearing the handcuffs.
"I couldn't believe what went on, it was so bizarre," she said. "I wasn't even prepared for it. Once you're in handcuffs, you can't do anything."
She was taken to the Orem Jail holding cell, where she sat for more than 30 minutes before being released and driven home by another officer, Edwards said.
As the officer drove her home, Perry said, he tried to reassure her.
"He said, 'I want you to try to get some rest and try to put this behind you. We're going to look into this,'" she said.
She was only released when police administrators learned about the situation.
"The director said, 'I want her out of my jail now,"' Edwards said, quoting his boss, Mike Larsen. "Clearly there were other options available. (The officer) should have taken those."
