Three Cops Face Termination For Bogus Tickets
It’s only taken four years, but it looks like three Chicago police officers who wrote Mark Geinosky bogus parking tickets, are one step away from being fired from the police force.
Readers will recall that the Tribune’s consumer help reporter, Jon Yates aka The Problem Solver stepped in to give Geinosky some help fighting a rash of questionable parking tickets that never showed up on his car’s windshield but always showed up in the mail.
But now, according to the most recent Problem Solver column in the Tribune, it looks like Police Commissioner Garry McCarthy is recommending termination for three of the four cops alleged to be involved, while a fourth cop would have faced a similar fate if not for being fired for an unrelated matter recently.
Geinosky, according to the story, seems shocked.
The three police officers now face a hearing in front of a Police Board to see if their termination holds up.
Here’s the Tribune’s full story, “Problem Solver: Police cite 3 officers over fake tickets; man vindicated.”
Its about time. The sad thing is, these cops would have gotten away with it if they weren’t so blatantly stupid about how they did it.
I personally know one of these officers and trust him with my life as well as any and all of your lives. I can also tell you that there is no way in this world that this man would waste his time and energy writing bogus tickets to screw with another fellow officers ex husband between the time he’s putting away drug dealers and dangerous gang members who threaten your safety everyday.
I’m not denying the fact that these men failed to report having missing/stolen ticket books but just because that is the case doesn’t automatically mean they are guilty of some crazy conspiracy to ruin Geinosky’s day
I can’t speak on behalf of all the officers involved here but for the one I do know, whos life has been turned upside down by this, I have to say that not only do they have the wrong man under investigation but they have removed an officer off the streets who I gurantee protected all of you while you sleep
Jim,
Something funny was going on here, and it would be great to get to the bottom of it and punish the person or persons involved.
At the same time, I hope innocent people don’t get dragged down by a parking ticket witch hunt.
If your friend or any of those officers forgot to report a missing/stolen ticket book, that doesn’t sound like a an offense worthy of firing. Perhaps it would warrant a reprimand of some sort.
My hope always is that justice is served, the guilty are punished and the innocent set free.
Thanks for the perspective.
Jim,
I appreciate your relationship with one of the officers named in the article and your concern for his well being. I have family members who are retired CPD who taught me respect for the blue shirt.
I can assure you that I too would like to know the entire story and the truth about who issued these tickets and why.
Was it one officer? Two? 9? I don’t know and unless the appeal is granted I will never know. And man is that frustrating.
I can assure you that I didn’t do anything to deserve these tickets and someone or multiple individuals conspired to screw my life up and I would really like to know why.
Because of the contract between the FOP and the city of Chicago all investigations of police officers are considered private and not open to the public. I had to sue the city just to be able to look at the IAD investigation and since that suit was thrown out I am blind to what happened after the IAD piece. I would like to see that negotiated out of the next contract with the FOP.
But in the least things need to be more transparent in regards to false parking tickets and a process needs to be put in place that allows the hearing officers who see them escalate them long before they get out of hand like they did in my case. That process should have a civilian rep involved to verify things are reviewed with concern for the individual who received the ticket(s).
Now there are officers and their families that are being affected by this nonsense. I can relate to that.
I hope everyone that is aware of the story wants the same thing. Justice. And I hope that the individual(s) responsible for this isn’t sleeping well.
There are now many people hurting because of a bunch of dumb parking tickets. I sure hope that individual(s) doesn’t wear a badge for the city of Chicago or is employed by the police department.
That’s one dangerous SOB(s) if he does.
I honestly hope from my heart that anyone innocent of these charges is allowed to keep his job and his reputation.
I will always support the great majority (98%) of CPD that does their job with honesty and integrity.
Mark Geinosky
Nicely put Mark.
Mark, I understand why you took the steps you did and agree that you should have. Receiving all those tickets in the mail is completely absurd.
I can only hope that further investigation will prove that some of these tickets in question were not in my friends writing and that they were in fact forged by the culprit behind all of this.
From what I know is that this unit where all these tickets came from specializes in drug and gang related crimes and are primarily focused on making arrests of very dangerous criminals in the worst parts of our city. The officer I know has made nearly 1000 arrests alone and many of them were armed men. It simply doesn’t make any rational sense at all for him to be involved in this other than having his ticket book stolen.
All of this looks extremely bad for the department and I think it is unfortunate that innocent officers need to take a fall for this so the CPD can look competent to the public when in fact they have failed to get all of the facts straight. I was told that these books do in fact get left in cars and on desks and file cabinets and proper protocol is not always followed with ticket books and for that my friend readily admits that he could have left his book where another officer could have taken it.
There is no way to prove without a shadow of a doubt that the tickets weren’t filled out by the officers in question so that’s really all the board needs to look at in order to terminate these men. They look at it as if there is any chance of involvement at all then these officers shouldn’t be in their position so regardless of not writing them there is still a very good chance that this will not end well for my friend.
I agree with a lot of others who have said that the person responsible for this should come forward and take the blame rather than sitting back and watching a few officers careers go down the toilet but what are the odds of that happening when they would go so far as to steal and forge tickets in the first place. They have no honor and should be completely ashamed of themselves and their actions.
I am also curious Mark, you have mentioned here and on other sites that your life was still being tampered with after this investigation was over with. What else has happened?
Weren’t the tickets signed? Can the signatures be verified by handwriting experts?