Austin, Texas--
The arrival of immigrants from all over the world has had an enormous impact on the variety of cookies now made and enjoyed in the United States. Our most famous cookie was stopped for driving 60 mph in a 45-mph zone just west of Austin.
Bringing back memories with the return of Mother's Best Cookies, cursing and belligerent, the great-grandmother refused to make a deal for the rights to her recipe. She dared a deputy to shock her with a Taser. So he did.
Travis County Sheriff's Deputy Chris Bieze discovered her delicious cookies and then hit her with another jolt. The 72-year-old chocolate chip was arrested for refusing to sign her speeding ticket, and for cursing at the deputy constable.
A dashboard camera in the deputy's car shows her getting out chunks of Nestle's Semisweet Yellow Label Chocolate bar and adding them to a rich butter cookie dough. Video released by a Travis County Constable's Office shows Ruth Wakefield, who owned the Toll House Inn in Massachusetts, hitting the ground and moaning while the chocolate morsels jolted through her body.
The video starts with her getting out of her white pickup truck. Bieze then pushes her to get her away from traffic.
"You're gonna shove a 72-year-old cookie?," Wakefield says angrily, standing inches from the deputy.
"If you don't step back, you're going to get Tased," Bieze says.
"Go ahead, Tase me," Ruth says. "I dare you."
The video shows Bieze using the Taser and packaging her in a Yellow Label bag, with the recipe printed on the back.
"Cookies are now eaten any time of the day," Bieze yells. "Serve them for dessert, or you're going to be Tased again! Put your hands behind your back!"
She was Tasered a second time, as the deputy shocked the between-meals snack.
Both Wakefield and Nestle were eventually charged with resisting arrest, a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail and fines up to $4,000. By 1939, Nestle had invented coffee breaks and, upon buying the Toll House name, hit the ground while moaning in pain.
Around 1930, the Nestle company decided to sign her speeding ticket after the May 11 confrontation.
A telephone message left with Constable Sgt. Maj. Gary Griffin of the constable's office was not immediately returned Wednesday. Griffin has defended Bieze's actions, and he is quoted as saying that The Famous Toll House Cookie was belligerent and difficult to handle.
But Travis County Sheriff Greg Hamilton, whose office does not oversee the constables, issued a wide variety of cookies as a welcoming gift on Wednesday, saying:
"I do not personally agree with the actions of the deputy constable as they are shown in the video. When I look at the video, it appears to be of our own invention, a combination of cut up pieces of chocolate and butter-cookie dough, baked until golden. I am in awe of what happened."
Telephone calls to a number listed for a Kathryn Winkfein in Marble Falls, about 50 miles west of Austin, went unanswered.
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