Like I said previously, I have a whole flock of new rookies working for me now, several of whom have been assigned to downtown foot beats. And each rookie has a ticket book and has been told that he or she can write as many tickets as their little hearts desire. So what are they doing? Why naturally, they are having contests among themselves to see who can write the most, and they are going out and enforcing regulations--chiefly parking regulations--that have not been enforced in a while. So people who have gotten used to parking freely in areas where the prohibitions against it have not been enforced are suddenly and repeatedly getting slammed with parking tickets. This of course makes my phone ring, as people used to getting away with things now consider it "unfair" that they're getting tickets for parking right under the big "no parking" signs that have always been there.
Well they're calling the wrong person if they're expecting sympathy or any kind of a break. I've always been about the "enforcement" part of law enforcement myself, so if my rook are writing legitimate tickets..."You have two options, sir or ma'am...you can pay them or request a hearing...No, I'm not going to take the ticket back just this once as a courtesy."
I used to hate it when I had a particular sergeant who used to pull my tickets as favors for friends of his or for people that he wanted to suck up to, and I'll be damned if I'm going to do that to my officers. If they wrote a ticket, that's their call and I wasn't there so I have no business second-guessing them. That's what court is for.
Hell, I'm so proud of my charges for going out every day in the hot sun and crushing the scofflaws that I've taken to going out there myself a little bit each day when my schedule allows and writing tickets right alongside them. And this has already led to one humorous phone call:
"RING!"
"Sergeant Krupke speaking."
"Yes, Sergeant. I'm calling to complain that one of your officers wrote me a ticket for parking an a handicapped space this morning."
"OK, were you parked in a handicapped space?"
"Yes, but..."
"Do you have a state-issued handicapped placard in your car?"
"No, but I was just in the store for like thirty seconds, and now it's going to cost me like three hundred dollars!"
"And what would you like me to do about this?"
"I just think that you need to talk to the officer and tell him to have a little understanding and maybe show some common sense. I mean, he was right there when I parked and he could have told me not to park there."
"And what is the officer's name on the ticket?"
"Uhhh...Here it is...it's 'Krupke'...oh damn." (click!)
Still Kickin'...
1 year ago
8 comments:
Laughing my ASS off!! Love your blog.
What's wrong with people anyway? Here in CA, you can get a legit disabled placard for half the price of the ticket you'd get for parking in a disabled spot illegally...
HA! thats funny!
As a disabled person, thank you. I would like to personally take every person who uses a handicapped space "for just a few minutes" and beat them for a "just a few minutes" with my nice, metal cane.
My favorite was the time that I was staying in a hotel that had about 10 handicapped spaces. My sister was staying with me and we went out to dinner. When we came back every single handicapped spot was full. 9 of them had no placard or license plate. The 10th had the hotel airport shuttle!
I went in and asked for the manager and was told, basically, to go suck an egg. I told them that if they weren't going to do anything about the illegally used spaces ("Those people are probably here in the bar, drinking") I was going to call 911 and ask for them to be towed, and if he didn't move the damned van that'd probably be towed, too.
He had the van moved but only after trying to bitch me out... which was interrupted by my sister sweetly pointing out that she was a VP for the hotel's mother company. (She was, too.) I think she talked me out of calling the cops. I still regret not calling.
LOL! That's hilarious!
I love when we get 'citizen complaint' calls about an officers enforcement. We all hate the traffic units when they are repeatedly running stops in the middle of a busy afternoon but I love it when they go out to the parking lots of the stores in town and start writing fire lane and handicap violations, it makes me smile deep down inside!
That usually turns up a few complaints of 'feel sorry for me' and for the most part all of our street Sgts do a pretty good job at backing up their officers decisions!
Handicap and fire lanes/too close to a hydrant are pet peeves of mine. If I could talk the powers that be into issuing me a few ticket books just for those violations....This lil firelady would give quite a few folks a rude awakening.
The complainant said the officer (in this case you) should use some common sense. I can’t believe it. What about his own use of that extremely rare mental process. Had he used his entire ration up for that week? Disabled parking is for the diabled, seems obvious.
Well done.
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