Bad tickets? Too bad, considering the reason for issuing them was the revenue

I remember an early-morning (as in about 1 a.m.) moment I had a couple of decades ago in the South Loop when I took a wrong turn down a one-way street, and got pulled over within a half-block by a Chicago police officer for driving in the wrong direction.

Too overactive?

I got ticketed, and actually showed up in court about a month later – only to get one of the biggest breaks I ever got in my life.

FOR IT SEEMS that the officers in question who pulled me over had issued a few tickets that night whose legitimacy was questionable.

What wound up happening was that the state’s attorney’s office had to dismiss the charges against every single person who got a ticket on that particular night.

Including myself. My wrong-way on a one-way street wound up being tossed. The court clerk in that courtroom handed me back my driver’s license and I didn’t have to pay any fine.

I still recall the look of disgust on the face of the assistant state’s attorney in that courtroom, knowing she was going to have to repeat the same drill for so many cases because of a cop screw-up.

I WONDER IF she’d feel just as appalled at the Chicago Tribune report on Wednesday that said the video cameras erected at Chicago intersections to catch traffic scofflaws had managed to screw up, and that some $2.4 million in fines were not valid.

I’m sure there’s somebody within municipal government who had already spent that money, and is now desperately trying to figure out how to make up the lost revenue.

It seems the problem lies with cameras that were still active, recording traffic activity and issuing citations, even after hours when they were supposed to be turned off.

For it seems some of those locations only had restricted traffic flow at certain times of the day. Or in other cases, signs warning people of parking or traffic restrictions were written or erected in such a confusing manner that it could be argued that motorists really didn’t know they were doing something improper.

I’M SURE THERE are some people out there who are dismissing this as a petty flaw. There probably are some people outraged that I got away with driving for half-a-block the wrong way on a one-way street.

But it really does come down to that legal principle that we hold our law enforcement officials to a higher standard and will not allow flawed cases to proceed.

These improperly-operating cameras can’t be allowed to take over and impose all these citations upon us – even though I’m very sure the big reason for having those cameras is to catch as many violations as possible as a municipal revenue source.

The fact that catching those offenses might make our streets more safe for the public is probably a secondary concern.

ALTHOUGH I HAVE to confess that reading the Tribune report about all those tickets being tossed out and the revenue lost amused me in the same way that watching television re-runs of “Hill Street Blues” does.

How many times did the officers of the Hill Street station in that Chicago-like city (even though the real-life Maxwell Street station’s outside was used in select scenes) do some minor gaffe that wound up resulting in their whole case being thrown out?

Usually with the voluptuous public defender Joyce Davenport delivering the lethal legal blow; leaving her boyfriend-turned-husband Captain Furillo as frustrated as anybody else!

Think of these flawed cameras as the 21^st Century equivalent of a police gaffe, and we have to wonder how little some things change at all.

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No more cop quotas for tickets?

We’ve all made jokes at one point or another about having received a ticket for an offense so petty or miniscule that the only reason the police officer really bothered to write it up was because his municipality wanted the money – and not because we did anything wrong.

As in the accumulation of $100 and $200 fines from individuals that can accumulate to build up a significant part of some smaller communities’ budgets.

THE DREADED COP quotas for tickets. As in officers having to show they wrote up a certain number of citations, or else risk some form of professional discipline. Quite possibly even losing their job.

Well, it would seem that policy is withering away. Just this past weekend, Gov. Pat Quinn gave his approval to a measure that prohibits police departments in Illinois from having policies requiring their officers to issue so many citations.

Not that I believe the policy will completely wither away. I merely suspect it will evolve into some other form. There are still going to be police officers writing out tickets while those of us who receive them wind up gnashing our teeth in anger!

Under the new law, which received very little opposition from members of the General Assembly, police departments can no longer require a specific number of tickets to be written in any given time period. Also, officers cannot have the number of tickets they issue used as any kind of criteria as to how good a job they are doing.

QUINN, IN SIGNING the bill into law, said he thinks it means tickets will be issued because people actually committed some sort of offense worthy of punishment. Police will be using their judgment in issuing citations – rather than trying to ensure they meet their goal for the month.

Somehow, I suspect that those officers who already were writing out significant numbers of citations will continue to do so. It is their judgment, and they may well continue to see many things being done that violate local municipal codes.

So those of you with a lead foot ought not think you can get away with driving around as though the whole rest of the world is supposed to defer to you. You’re still going to run into the cop who’s willing to ticket you.

The rest of us will be safer as a result, because you’re the type of motorist that the rest of us wind up shaking our fists at while spewing a string of obscenities because of your thoughtlessness.

ALTHOUGH THE PART of this that catches my curiosity is the fact that many police departments already were getting away from using numbers of tickets issued as some sort of professional criteria.

I know of police departments that require their officers to interact with people in the community – and go so far as to require their officers to record each and every incident.

Whether it’s just answering questions from the public, checking into a situation that looked like it could become heated or actually finding something that is severe enough to warrant a citation or an arrest, they all account for something equal.

That might actually be a better approach, because it puts into the head of the police officer that he (or she) is supposed to be there to serve the public – rather than there to be the constant eye watching over the public.

BUT I’M SURE that even with this approach, there will be people complaining that the police are only around when you don’t need them.

Because the one thing I have always noted about law enforcement is that not only do they do a difficult job (people tend to die when they screw up), it is one that doesn’t get them much public respect.

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Getting fined for posts on Facebook? Could be the wave of the future

A woman living in suburban Bolingbrook could be the first of many who will face fines because they couldn’t control what they decided to post about themselves on Facebook.

Actually, in this instance, the woman won’t face a fine because officials with the Will County Forest Preserve District decided to rescind the ticket they initially issued her – one that called for a $50 fine.

BUT THE FACT that someone reading a Facebook page who was in a position of authority decided that something posted there could be worthy of some form of discipline could be something we see more of.

And it’s likely that in the future, some official won’t back down from insisting on collecting a fine. Some municipality is bound to think they need the money badly enough to want to have someone scour through Facebook in search of something that could hint at a violation.

One that needs to be punished!

“Big Brother” really is watching you! Even all the stupid, trivial things you elect to post on your Facebook account page.

PERSONALLY, I ONLY use Facebook to promote this weblog and its sister site. Anybody reading my page is only going to get tidbits about what is published here. Along with the occasional comment my aunts in the greater Minneapolis, Minn., area decide to post.

Although I suppose someone offended by my opinion could try to harass me in the same way. Not that I’m overly concerned about what some anonymous crank thinks of what I choose to write.

But the larger lesson is that Facebook does put our comments out there to a wide audience – many of whom are people we don’t know. That’s kind of the whole point of the concept – which is why I don’t post much personal material beyond what I write here.

It’s kind of like asking the local police to prod in your life, which is what happened to the Bolingbrook woman.

THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE reported Thursday now the woman got a $50 ticket on May 20 because of a comment she posted on a page related to the Whalon Lake Dog Park in Bolingbrook.

There have been problems at the dog park related to “kennel cough” being passed around area dogs. The woman, according to the Tribune, posted a comment saying she hadn’t bought a permit to use the dog park this year, but wrote it in a vague way that could be interpreted to say she had used the park.

One forest preserve district read the comment, passed it along to a superior, and then the ticket was issued.

It seems the woman hasn’t been at the dog park this year, so the ticket for using the dog park without a permit turned out to be premature.

THE DISTRICT’S POLICE department said it is reviewing its policies, while saying it does not plan to routinely monitor social media accounts. They also say there are no plans to discipline the officer who issued the citation, or any others involved, because they tell the Tribune there were “good intentions” involved.

But what happens when we get a governmental entity that isn’t quite so understanding about the concept of social media and a person’s desire to express themselves?

Will we someday get overzealous officials who view social media comments the same way they now view traffic violations – as something to be routed out in great numbers so that citations can be issued and fines can be collected.

People should keep this in mind, and perhaps learn to be overly precise in what they write. Because even though they think they’re writing for a select audience of like-minded people, other people are reading. And reacting.

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