In the Ozark Mountains hamlet of Tontitown, Arkansas, an alleged act of familial bonding took a bizarre turn when Jeremy Sherland found himself in the crosshairs of local law enforcement, accused of transgressing the state's stringent statutes against unlicensed "body art."
This Sunday sideshow unfolded with Sherland's arrest on suspicion of performing a body piercing on his son, who had not yet reached the tender age of sixteen, thereby endangering a minor and ultimately resisting the officers of the law.
The strange saga began when the teenage boy, in search of notoriety among his peers, regaled his classmates with the tale of his newly-pierced earlobe. He claimed his inebriated father, in a display of Dionysian excess, had employed a chokehold before violently impaling the adornment through his earlobe.
When word of the incident reached the ever-vigilant ears of the Tontitown Police Department, they dispatched officers to the Sherland residence to seek more information. Sherland the elder, in a show of defiance, initially refused to engage with the officers seeking his side of the story. Undeterred, the officers consulted Washington County prosecutors and returned to the alleged scene of the crime to apprehend the suspected culprit.
The ensuing spectacle, captured on video, showed four uniformed enforcers forcing their way into the home as if storming the gates of a fortified castle, in order to subdue and handcuff the accused. A woman in the frame, perhaps driven by righteous indignation, demanded an explanation for the commotion. Sherland, his wrists bound, responded with a cacophony of sardonic laughter, incredulously exclaiming, "Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Body art without a license! Body art without a license!"
As the arresting officers paraded the suspect through the neighborhood, Sherland continued to mock their efforts. The woman, incensed by the invasion of her home, followed the procession, decrying the excessive force used to apprehend the rogue ear piercer.
In a twist of irony, a young male voice chimed in from behind the camera, earnestly asserting, "I wanted my ears pierced."
[Via NBC News]
