Tag Archives: Chicago police
To Avoid Ticket, Driver Tries To Rundown Cops
Running over a policeman is never a good idea.
Even if it’s to avoid receiving a traffic ticket.
Ironically, an employee for Allstate Insurance was arrested for striking a police officer after she was pulled over in her Corvette on North Michigan Ave. Saturday after pulling a U-turn while observed talking on her cell phone according to the Chicago Tribune. Before police officers on bikes could issue her traffic citations, she backed into one officer and left the scene.
Union Fights Back For 4 Cops Caught Up In Ticket Writing Scam
No surprise here.
The Fraternal Order of Police, the union which represents Chicago police officers is strongly backing its four members who’ve been implicated and recommended for termination for their alleged involvement in the Mark Geinosky ticket writing scam says the Chicago Tribune.
Geinosky is the man from the South Suburbs who kept on getting parking tickets for places he had never been. Geinosky got 24 tickets in all and beat every last one, but media scrutiny from the Tribune’s Problem Solver column and Geinosky’s law suit has put the jobs of several cops at risk.
Three of the four cops have hearing dates on December 9th. The fourth one is fighting in Afghanistan and won’t have his hearing until he returns stateside.
Here’s the Tribune’s update on the case, “Problem Solver: Ticket case keeps on ticking.”
Crosswalk Enforcement Sting Set For Downtown Wednesday Night
Chicago Police and the Chicago Department of Transportation bring their crosswalk enforcement initiative to the Gold Coast Wednesday night.
The intersection of LaSalle and Chestnut Streets will be ground zero tonight from 8 PM until 10 PM for crosswalk enforcement. This program undercover cops posing as pedestrians who step off the curb into a crosswalk to attempt crossing the street in front of an oncoming vehicle.
If the driver doesn’t come to a complete stop and allow the “pedestrian” to cross the street completely, the motorist can be ticketed and potentially fined $50 to $500.
ALERT!: Crosswalk Enforcement At 3 Locations Saturday
Watch yourself driving Saturday morning.
The police department will be out doing crosswalk enforcement at select intersections starting at 8 AM.
The Crosswalk Enforcement Initiatives program is a form of driver education which teaches motorists via hefty fines, that they must always stop to allow pedestrians to cross the street at intersections.
Cops, acting like pedestrians will step off the curb and into the crosswalk to ostensibly reach the other side of the street. If you don’t stop and let the “pedestrian” completely cross the street, you will be fined anywhere from $50 to $500. Ouch.
Here’s where enforcement teams will be on Saturday, May 21st:
Drivers Pose As Police, Pass On Paying For Parking
Sometimes you’ll see construction workers place their brightly colored safety vests in the window of their car to prevent a parking ticket in an illegal parking spot or in a metered area.
Ticket writers will usually pass over these cars as a professional courtesy to other city workers.
But now CBS 2′s Dave Savini has caught some drivers near the Cook County Courthouse on Harrison, abusing this courtesy in a pretty egregious manner by using police uniforms, and other police items to keep from being ticketed.
Daley Suspends Revenue Director Reyna-Hickey
DOR Director Takes Fall Over Leak To Sun-Times
Mayor Daley is angry.
Pissed really.
He’s mad that someone in the city leaked a memo to the Sun-Times that shows a 25% decrease in the number of parking tickets Chicago Police are writing.
In essence, he’s mad that the public knows the truth.
Truth is one of those annoying things that anger dictators.
But the decreased ticket writing is a symptom. The real problem is the Mayor’s horrible handling of the city’s finances.
Because of the budget deficit, the city doesn’t have the funds to hire more desperately needed cops to patrol our streets. The cops that are on the payroll are too overwhelmed by real crime to waste their time writing tickets. Combine this fact with low police morale from a drawn out police contract negotiation and you see why ticketing is down over 200,000 tickets and about $10 million or more in revenue.
CBS 2 Talks Tickets Tonight At Ten
CBS 2′s premier producer Ed Marshall e-mailed earlier today with a heads up on a followup piece to the Sun-Times article this morning.
My guess veteran reporter Jay Levine will be at the helm of the story to dig deeper into why police ticketing is down 25% from 2009.
Unless Blago trial coverage gets in the way, tune in at 10 to CBS 2 News to see their piece.
Cell Phone Tickets On The Rise In Chicago
Sun-Times Report Spotlights Cell Phone Ticket Hot Spots
Monday’s Sun-Times had an interesting piece that looked at cell phone tickets in Chicago.
Chicago fines drivers 100 bucks if they’re caught driving while talking on their phone without a headset or on speaker phone. The disturbing trend is that the volume of tickets is rising, with 2010 poised to be a record year for these type of violations.
This cell phone law was passed in 2005 only 4,589 tickets were issued, with tickets increasing each year (13,433 in 2006, 17,413 in 2007) until 2008 when numbers slipped a bit to 10,406, which has been attributed to the city changing this law to make it a type of violation that did not require the police officer to confiscate the offending motorist’s driver’s license.
Mysterious Illegally Parked Car Never Gets Ticketed?
I tried.
I went out of town with the family for just a few days to try to relax and completely ignore the computer, e-mails, etc.
But when I get back into town Sunday night, I check the computer, and my e-mail box is filled with tips about some alleged parking ticket hanky panky up in Boystown.
According to HillBuzz blog, there seems to be a very sweet silver BMW with Illinois license plate X55 0474 that allegedly parks illegally along Halsted St. (near Newport) on weekends, but never, ever gets ticketed.
According to HillBuzz, the author relates a recent experience where he witnessed two ticket writers come across the vehicle, but then essentially kept on going without slapping some bright orange on the windshield.
When one of the ticket writers is confronted and asked why they ignored ticketing the plainly illegally parked vehicle, the ticket writer claims they were instructed NOT to ticket that particular vehicle.
