Are you sure it wasn't Deputy Fife?

Here's a great idea. If your neighbor has, say, a basketball hoop in her driveway and you're sick and tired of hearing that damn ball bouncing on the cement at all hours of the day, place an ad on Craigslist and see if someone will take it off your neighbor's hands. 

That's exactly what Officer Chad Lee Hickey of the Arlington (Texas) Police Department did. And now Tarrant County prosecutors are trying to decide what, if any, crime Hickey committed when he placed the "ad."

"The reporting officer originally wrote the offense for forgery," said Sgt. Stan Davis of the Mansfield Police Department. "We don't really know what the offense is yet. There are several different offenses that might fit. That's why the district attorney is reviewing it, to find out if there is a criminal offense and, if so, to find out which offense fits the best."Regardless of what law enforcement officials eventually decide, Huwitt believes she has been victimized and says Hickey should at least lose his job.

The case is a first for veteran Tarrant County prosecutor Dixie Bersano.

"I'm having to look up a lot of the law," she said, "to determine one, if the law was broken, and what that law is."

Apparently Officer Hickey thought the basketball goal was "junking up" the neighborhood and took it upon himself to get rid of it. 

Association president Daryle Perez declined to comment, saying the incident was an issue between neighbors, not a board matter. He did confirm that Hickey and his wife recently resigned from the association's Declarations & Bylaws Committee.

According to a copy of the resignation letter provided by Sherry Huwitt, Hickey apologized "for any and all upset feelings. Due to the items needing to be removed since they were not properly taken care of, I thought of a solution that was wrong to a valid issue. I regret my decision and wish I could take it back."

Huwitt, 46, said she does not have any more "junk" in her yard than anyone else and is not aware of any other Remington Ranch resident being the victim of such an ad.

"To me, it's racial," said Huwitt, who is African-American. Hickey is white. "You can look at it any other way, but that's the way I look at it."