Man arrested after using free Wi-Fi service

Alexander Eric Smith sat in his truck for hours at a time each day, for the past 3 months, and used the free Internet wireless access of his local coffee shop. Smith never made a single purchase, and he was warned against using the Wi-Fi access by the manager of Brewed Awakenings.

“He doesn’t buy anything,” Manager Emily Pranger says about the man she ended up calling 911 about. “It’s not right for him to come and use it.”

Smith was arrested by the authorities for theft of service after the manager called 9-1-1.

Now, while I can understand the frustration of the manger at Brewed Awakenings, I really can’t justify calling 911 to have someone arrested for using your free Wi-Fi, unless he was somehow disrupting the service. If you want to restrict people from using your service, it’s probably not a good idea to offer unsecured Wi-Fi access, and advertise it.

Unfortunately for this guy, it seems that the police had asked him to stop using the coffee shop’s internet access previously, after the manager had complained.

Source KATU