Shod Foot Kleagle once stood on the banks of the North River, eyes brimming with carefully staged tears, voice cracking for the cameras as she raged about the 2019 fish kill. Signs high, hashtags ready, she demanded that every single polluter be dragged into the light and made to pay for poisoning the water we all drink. She wanted the world to remember her as the river’s loudest, purest guardian.
Five years later, on November 30, 2025, that same Shod Foot Kleagle turned the Deerfield River into her personal evidence-disposal service.
After she and her husband, Broken Boat, beat a man on a Shelburne Falls sidewalk (Broken Boat charging in to slam the victim to the pavement, Shod Foot piling on with punches to the head and kicks to the body while screaming “You deserve it!”), the only thing standing between them and multiple felony charges was the phone recording every second of it.
So Shod Foot stole the phone and, in one deliberate, theatrical heave, launched it high over the fence near Floodwater Brewing. It arced, splashed, and sank, carrying irrefutable high-definition proof of their joint assault and battery straight to the river bottom.
She didn’t just destroy evidence. She poisoned the watershed she once pretended to love.That phone is now a cracked lithium battery bleeding cobalt, nickel, cadmium, lead, and flammable electrolyte into the same river system she marched to “save.” One discarded iPhone can render forty thousand liters of water toxic. One phone is enough to seed a slow, permanent plume of heavy metals and forever chemicals that will climb the food chain for decades. The same child-labor cobalt and conflict minerals she once boycotted in tearful Facebook posts are now leaching out because Shod Foot needed to hide her own violence and her husband’s.
Before the inevitable criminal complaints started circling, Shod Foot didn’t wait to be charged. She ran to the courthouse first and filed a harassment prevention order against the man she and Broken Boat had just finished stomping, an abuser’s classic DARVO play: Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender.
She voluntarily attached an affidavit to that filing, a sworn statement so stuffed with lies it should glow in the dark. At least ten obvious, provable perjuries, crowned by the centerpiece: under oath, she never mentioned she threw anything into the river. Never seized the phone. Never watched it sink. The splash, the arc, the toxins now corroding on the riverbed? All a figment of her victim’s imagination, apparently.
She signed that perjury with the same hand that once held protest signs demanding “accountability.”
The North River can’t countersue. The mussels filtering that water can’t testify. The kid who drinks from a downstream tap in 2035 won’t know that the faint metallic taste traces back to the night an “environmentalist” chose her freedom over the river’s life.
Shod Foot doesn’t get to keep the hero cape. She traded it for a cracked lithium cell still leaking on the bottom of the Deerfield, still poisoning the water she swore to defend, long after every hashtag, every protest photo, and every lying affidavit has turned to dust.
That phone, quietly dissolving in the current, is the only honest monument she ever built.And the river remembers. I wonder how Rhonda Anderson would feel about the permanent poisoning of the Pocumtuck?
Charges for Poisoning the River (Dumping an iPhone)Throwing an iPhone into the river isn't just littering—it's illegal pollution of a protected waterway with hazardous electronic waste (e-waste). The device contains toxic heavy metals (e.g., cobalt, nickel, cadmium, lead), lithium batteries, and flame retardants that leach into sediments and the food chain, potentially contaminating 40,000+ liters of water. This violates multiple laws, leading to civil and criminal charges. Penalties depend on intent, scale, and jurisdiction but can escalate quickly due to the river's protected status.Criminal Charges
Charge | Relevant Law | Description | Potential Penalties |
|---|---|---|---|
Illegal Dumping of Solid/Hazardous Waste | MassDEP Solid Waste Regulations (310 CMR 19.000); MA Waste Bans (2000) | E-waste like phones is banned from disposal in MA waterways or landfills. Classified as "special waste" due to toxics. | Misdemeanor or felony: Up to 2 years in jail and $25,000 fine (first offense). Repeat: Up to 5 years and $50,000. Civil fines up to $25,000/day. |
Water Pollution | MA Clean Waters Act (M.G.L. c. 21, § 43); 314 CMR 3.00 | Knowingly discharging pollutants into classified waters (Class A like Deerfield). | Felony: Up to 2 years in jail and $25,000 fine. Civil penalties: $10,000–$50,000 per violation. |
Larceny/Theft | M.G.L. c. 266, § 30 | Seizing and destroying the phone (value ~$500–$1,000). | Misdemeanor: Up to 1 year in jail and $300–$1,000 fine. |
Obstruction of Justice/Destruction of Evidence | M.G.L. c. 268, § 13B; 18 U.S.C. § 1519 (federal if interstate commerce) | Throwing phone to erase assault video. | Felony: 5–20 years federal prison; state: Up to 10 years and $10,000 fine. |
Perjury | M.G.L. c. 268, § 1 | Lying in affidavit (e.g., denying the throw). | Felony: Up to 20 years in prison and $10,000 fine (up to 10 counts possible). |
Violation | Relevant Law | Description | Typical Penalties (Examples from MA Cases) |
|---|---|---|---|
Clean Water Act Violation | Federal CWA (33 U.S.C. § 1319); NPDES Permit | Unpermitted discharge of toxics into navigable waters. | $3,000–$129,000+ per violation (e.g., $117,500 settlement for scrapyard stormwater in Walpole, 2024 ; $48,000 for construction erosion in Bellingham, 2023 ). Adjusted for inflation: Up to $68,000/day. |
Hazardous Waste Discharge | Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA); MA Hazardous Waste Regs (310 CMR 30.000) | E-waste treated as hazardous; improper disposal. | $25,000–$100,000+ civil fine; cleanup costs (e.g., $75,000 for auto recycler stormwater in Brockton, 2024 ). |
State Environmental Violation | MA Environmental Protection Act (M.G.L. c. 21A) | Broader pollution claims; AGO often leads. | $10,000–$50,000+; funds restoration (e.g., $174,000 total for two stormwater cases in 2024 ). |
In practice, a single iPhone dump could net $10,000–$50,000 in civil fines plus restitution (e.g., river cleanup), escalating if tied to assault/obstruction. Intent (e.g., evidence destruction) pushes toward criminal. Report via MassDEP hotline (617-292-5633) or EPA (1-800-49TOXIC) for investigation. The river's protections make this no slap on the wrist—it's a serious hit to "defenders" who poison what they claim to save.
