Woman Gets 63 Days To Stop Smoking For Slapping Deputy

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — She slapped a deputy in a strange bid to quit smoking, and so far it's working out just as she planned.

Etta Mae Lopez pleaded no contest to smacking a Sacramento County Sheriff's deputy earlier this week. She says she wanted to go to jail to kick a smoking habit.

Now she'll have a 63-day jail sentence to help her stop smoking. She'll also have three years of probation.

Deputy Matt Campoy told CBS 13 it came out of nowhere as he left his shift at the Sacramento County Jail: A woman purposely blocking his way.

"All of a sudden, she stepped into me and slapped me in the face," he said. "She told us that she needed to quit smoking," Campoy said.

A neighbor who knows Lopez says she does smoke a lot, and they used to smoke together, but he can't figure out her alleged smoking cessation plan.

"There's easier ways to stop smoking than hitting a cop," he said. "No, that's not the way I want to quit."

Kimberly Bankston-Lee, with the anti-smoking group Breathe California, agrees that coldcocking a cop isn't the best way to quit cold turkey.

"If it led somebody to do something like that to quit, that lets us know in the community that we have a real problem." she said.