Elderly Alabama woman arrested for not paying $77 trash bill

An 82-year-old woman from Alabama has been arrested over an outstanding trash bill, which is worth $77.

Martha Louis Menefield said she was perplexed while officers handcuffed her and arrested her on Sunday.

“You’re not kidding?” she said to the officer as she was being arrested. The officer confirmed that he was indeed there to arrest her over her unpaid bill.

“I was upset because I didn’t know why they would come and arrest me,” Menefield said, adding that when she was placed in handcuffs, one of the officers “kind of whispered it to me: ‘Don’t cry.’”

She recalled telling an officer: “How would you feel if they came and arrested your grandmama?” The officer reportedly didn’t respond.

After being arrested, Menefield was taken to the Valley police department and temporarily held before she was released on bond.

“I was in a little cage-like thing at the police station,” Ms Menefield told CBS News. “And I said, ‘Y’all put me in this cage? You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

The City of Valley police responded to the incident on Facebook, saying that they treated Menefield respectfully and that she had been notified on a number of occasions that the bill was outstanding by more than 3 months.

“Ms Menefield was treated respectfully by our officers in the performance of their duties and was released on a bond as prescribed by the violation,” Police Chief Mike Reynolds said in the statement.

“A warrant for Failure to Pay Trash was issued when she did not appear in court,” Reynolds said, adding that Menefield also had her trash services suspended three times in the past two years.

However, many on social media still condemned the police department for arresting the woman over a fine that was under $100.

“We are failing as a society. We are failing as humans,” one user wrote on Twitter.

“This is awful!!! She needs to be exempt from paying a garbage bill due to her age! Why don’t they go get the REAL criminals off the streets!!!” said another.