Random acts of kindness may have been popularized by the Oprah Winfrey Show, but Oprah Winfrey never got arrested for the harmless acts.

A 62-year-old business woman, Sylvia Stayton, was arrested in Cincinnati, Ohio for putting 15 cents into two expiring parking meters so the drivers wouldn’t get a ticket.

She was on her way to court that day to file for bankruptcy for the spray-manufacturing business she and her husband have run for 20 years.

Stayton was arrested for violating a 1958 meter-feeding ordinance designed to keep storefront spaces rotating so the office workers wouldn’t hog them all day.

She was charged with disorderly conduct and obstructing official business.

The grandmother of 10 could get up to four months in jail and $1,000 in fines.

Arresting officer Edward Johnson stated in the police report that she was “engaging in turbulent behavior by an act which served no lawful and reasonable purpose.”

When has a harmless act of kindness become against the law or considered “turbulent behavior?”

Shouldn’t police officers be spending their time with more stressing matters, such as the war on drugs, violence in our streets, and the theft of our homes and businesses?

Either this police officer had nothing else to do that day, or he just felt like arresting a bankrupt 62-year-old grandmother who was trying to save anonymous people money.

This cruel incident and waste of taxpayers’ money should not discourage people from doing a random act of kindness.

And someone should come to this poor woman’s defense.

Her only crime was kindness. And her sentence should be a hearty thank you and an apology, not jail time or a fine.