https://www.facebook.com/lucille.gibbs/videos/10216799511930887/
The white Ohio couple who called police on a 12-year-old Black boy for mistakenly mowing part of their lawn two weeks ago dialed 911 on the child yet again over the Fourth of July holiday, an exclusive report by Mic revealed.
Reggie Fields, founder and CEO of Mr. Reggie’s Lawn Cutting Service, was among a group of children invited to an Independence Day party hosted by Lucille Holt-Colden, the Maple Heights grandmother who hired him to mow her lawn June 23, the news site reported.
Holt-Colden and her guests were enjoying dinner in her front and back yards on Wednesday when something all too familiar happened: police cruisers arrived at her home. It turns out officers were summoned by the woman’s next-door neighbors, Randy and Linda Krakora — the same couple who’d called the cops on her and Reggie just 11 days earlier.
According to Maple Heights Police, Wednesday’s call stemmed from Holt-Colden’s kids and guests, including Reggie, reportedly slamming into the couple’s fence while playing on a makeshift Slip n’ Slide.
“Somebody, anybody, better do something about this,” a frustrated Holt-Colden says in the Facebook video she took of the incident. The police [are] being called because the kids are playing in water. Maple Heights Police, you ain’t got nothing else better to do, do you?!”
“Mayor, what you gon’ do?!” she continued. “Maple Heights chief of police, what you gon’ do?!”
No arrests or citations were issued that day, but a police report noted minor damage to the Krakora’s fence.
“The report says [the Slip ‘N Slide] caused a board to pop off the fence,” Maple Heights Police Cheif Joe Mocsiran told Mic in a phone interview last Thursday. “If it’s a result of playing and there’s no criminal intent, then it becomes a civil matter.”
Mocsiran said that members of the Krakora household, including the couple’s son, daughter-in-law and two grandkids, have dialed police an estimated 60 times in the 18 years they’ve lived at that address. Most were non-emergency calls for minor issues permission to park on the street, however.
Mocsiran said there’s only a law forbidding 911 abuse. Therefore, the department cannot punish the Krakora’s for calling them excessively, so long as the family is using the non-emergency line.
Speaking to Mic, Linda Krakora said her family has always been advised to call police if they felt threatened rather than try to handle the situation themselves.
‘”Don’t confront these people, just call us,’” Linda Krakora recalled police telling her. “We are a slightly older couple. We have a white couple in their eighties next to us. If we feel it’s going to be more of an issue to go over trying to talk to somebody, for our safety, we just call the police.”
That’s just what Krakora’s husband, Randy, did when he called police on young Reggie, who had accidentally mowed a portion of their lawn while he, his siblings and girl cousins helped cut Holt-Colden’s grass. At the time, Reggie said the incident left him feeling discouraged and angry.
“I was very angry,” he told Inside Editon. “Who calls the police on children?”
The pint-sized CEO said he had no idea he had cut into the couple’s lawn, further fueling an ongoing dispute between them and Holt-Colden that began not long after the Black grandmother and her children moved in next-door in October, Mic reported.
Linda Krakora said she and her husband are upset about the negative attention they’ve received since calling police on June 23 and insisted the incident had nothing to do with race. She said her husband wasn’t calling police on Reggie, but rather Colt-Holden.
“I’m sorry that the young man got scared — though I don’t really think they got as scared as he says because [Reggie’s cousins] were mouthing off to my husband when the police asked them to clear our driveway,” Linda Krakora said. “[Holt-Colden] is making this about race when race has nothing to do with it.”