What the heck, man? The $301 Taco

This is a good one.

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/7832384/ex-florida-gators-player-erving-walker-ordered-pay-301-stolen-3-taco

 

Summary: Erving Walker, who just finished his final season with the Florida Gators after setting the career assists record for the school, decided that he absolutely couldn't pay for the $3 taco he received from a street vendor in Gainesville, Florida.  He grabbed his taco and ran, soon to be followed by the Gainesville police.  Reports state that the police told Walker to stop, but he saw them and continued to run.  Walker was eventually caught a few blocks later after a foot race with the police and several police cars.

Notable Facts/Ideas: Walker was charged with misdemeanor petit theft and was forced to pay $301 for the taco as punishment.  That's over a 10,000% mark up.  Walker could've purchased 99.33 more tacos with what he paid for one.  If he ate three tacos a day, he could've fed himself for a little over a month with the money from his punishment.

Opinion: Not much to say on this one.  Admittedly, Walker's reasoning concerns me:

"It was just a silly mistake," Walker said after his court appearance. "I apologize to everybody. I'm embarrassed about it. That's not me. I'm just trying to put it behind me and move on."

He also claims that he was "just playing around".  Now, normally instances like this bother me because Walker's statement is the type that devalues other instances of similar word usage.  Those other instances generally apply to more legitimate situations and even when spoken sincerely, lose value because of how often the words are spoken, especially in dumb instances like this.  Luckily, this instance is seemingly ridiculous enough that nobody will tie any value to Walker's words.

This one deserves a resounding statement, so say it with me: What the heck, man?