Mother lets son drive golf cart at resort | The Compost Bin | Forums

Mall’s case, which occurred on a laid-back luxury resort island where golf carts take the place of automobiles, is a example of how an encounter with police can spiral out of control even in the most idyllic of settings.

To be sure, Mall’s case doesn’t rise to the magnitude of recent police confrontations that have spurred a national debate. But it left the Charlotte suburbanite physically bruised, emotionally shaken and ensnared in a protracted legal tangle she could never foresee.

There are two versions of what happened, one told by Mall and her companions that night and one by the authorities. Bald Head officials would not discuss the details of the encounter beyond what is in the official report.

Mall, a mother of two, wasn’t shopping her story around or trying to get publicity. We heard about it from a third party and contacted her, asking if she would discuss it with the Observer. She agreed because she felt it was important for people to know what could happen.

“I just want it on the record,” Mall says, “in case it happens to someone else.”

A picturesque resort

Bald Head Island, about 20 miles south of Wilmington, is one of the most enchanting enclaves in the Carolinas.

About a 20-minute ferry ride from Southport, the island boasts extensive wetlands, maritime forest and 14 miles of wide beach.

Stories from the golden age of piracy and the Civil War are threaded through its peculiar history. It is home to luxury cottages worth millions and a scenic golf course. Sea turtles have built their nests on Bald Head since antiquity, and it is home to Old Baldy, built in 1817, the oldest standing lighthouse in North Carolina.

Bald Head Village has about 25 officers in its Public Safety Department. With a year-round population of 168, the municipality has the enviable ratio of one officer for every seven residents. By comparison, Charlotte’s ratio is about one for every 438 residents.

Because of its distance from the mainland, Bald Head officers are expected to be trained in the three disciplines needed by the public safety agency – law enforcement, fire/rescue and emergency medical.

Hiring officers with all three skills can be challenging, Village Manager Chris McCall says, and often candidates are hired with some skills and then trained in the others.

Says she was wrong

Mall says there is no question she was wrong. You must be 16 and have a valid drivers’ license to drive a golf cart on Bald Head Island. There have been fatal accidents there from people falling out of carts.

What troubles her, Mall says, was what she describes as hostile, aggressive treatment by police.

Mall, 43, 5-foot-4 and 125 pounds, is a software sales representative. Until last summer, the whole of her criminal record was a speeding ticket in 2007. She and her husband, an information technology consultant, have been married for 19 years, are active in St. Matthew Catholic Church and live on the outskirts of Ballantyne in Union County.

Mall says her family has been spending a week on Bald Head for years, a trip they look forward to all year.

Mall says they were nearly back to their cottage the evening of July 26, 2015, when a police golf cart with flashing lights pulled them over on Muscadine Wynd, one of the many paved paths on the island.

An officer came up to the cart that was carrying her, her husband, Scott Mall, 45, their 11-year-old son Josh and 9-year-old daughter Erin, her niece Stephanie Phelps, 22, of Chapel Hill and Rocket, their Golden Retriever.

“Immediately he started berating us,” she says. “He was saying ‘How old is this kid?’ ‘Are you guys drunk?’ ‘I could write you up for child abuse.’ ”

Mall says she had no more than a single glass of wine with dinner hours earlier, and no one was intoxicated.

As the officer’s tirade continued, she says, her son burst into tears. She asked her niece to take the children back to the cottage.