LAWTON – Many a person in a rush has inadvertently left a cup of coffee or a soft drink on the roof of a car and pulled out of the driveway, spilling the contents over the side of the vehicle.
The Lawton City Council paid a high price recently for a similar goof.
An Elgin man was stopped by a Lawton police officer on July 19 for driving a vehicle that carried no license plate. The officer also discovered that the driver had an outstanding warrant for failure to appear in court to answer for a ticket issued by the Lawton Police Department for a seatbelt infraction.
While placing the motorist under arrest, the police officer removed the driver’s wrist watch and placed it on the hood of his police cruiser before handcuffing the man.
Video from the officer’s ‘dash cam’ “clearly shows the watch sliding off the hood” of the police car as the officer drove away. “It appears the police unit computer may have obstructed the officer’s view of that portion of the hood,” Assistant City Attorney Garrett Lam wrote in a memorandum to the City Council.
It turns out that the driver wasn’t wearing any old cheapo watch that “takes a licking and keeps on ticking.” He submitted a receipt showing he paid $755 for the timepiece, and the council approved his reimbursement claim.