Oyibo Craze! Police Arrests Dad for Seizing Daughter's Phone

When Ronald Jackson found a text he thought was rude and inappropriate on his then 12-year-old daughter’s phone in September 2013, he took the cell away. But the child’s mother, Michelle Steppe, got mad at his action and she called the police.


As you read this, the 36-year-old father, who hails from Texas, had been charged with theft of property after confiscating his daughter’s iPhone 4 after he found an inappropriate text on it.

Shortly thereafter, Mr Jackson received a citation for the “theft,” a Class C misdemeanor. What!?

Jackson was then offered a plea deal in January 2014 if he returned the phone, attained legal representation, and requested a jury trial.

Surprisingly, the city attorney’s office refiled the case with a harsher offense, a Class B misdemeanor that is punishable to up to six months in jail and a $2,000 fine.

After a warrant was placed on him, Jackson was arrested and taken into custody in April 2015, but managed to post a $1,500 bail to avoid incarceration during his trial.

Luckily for him, the judge ordered for Jackson to be found not guilty, citing insufficient evidence.

Mr Jackson shared his ordeal to CBSDFW:
“I was being a parent. You know, a child does something wrong, you teach them what’s right. You tell them what they did wrong and you give them a punishment to show that they shouldn’t be doing that.”

“It made no sense to me for them (Police) to show up and make a big deal out of something that was a small thing,” Jackson said. “I couldn’t believe they would go to this extent for a cellphone. It didn’t seem right.”  

Funny enough, Mr Jackson spent one night in jail before he met the $1,500.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” John Cook, one of Jackson’s defense attorneys, said on Wednesday. “You would think we were on the Jerry Springer Show.”

Mr Jackson is now filing a Federal complaint of civil rights violation due to the way he was treated by police and the city attorney’s office just because of his daughter's phone. This is really Oyibo craze.