Cop Mentality Follies
When police park at HQ, regular rules do not apply
"Illegal parking in a handicapped spot is no trifling matter. Boston issues 11,000 tickets a year, each of which carries a $120 fine and often a $93 towing charge. And it is not uncommon for passersby to loudly rebuke able-bodied drivers who use parking spots reserved for the disabled.
But violators who use the 11 handicapped-designated spaces in front of Boston Police headquarters are immune from any sanction at all - or even a sidelong glance from the scores of police officers who enter and leave the building every day, according to Globe observations over the past two months.
One repeat scofflaw: the driver of a Toyota Corolla registered to Irene Landry, the city's supervisor of Parking Enforcement, who oversees the 194 parking enforcement officers who write 1.3 million tickets a year.
When a Globe reporter called Landry's office on Feb. 10 to ask about the Toyota, Landry was stunned. "I will investigate," she said. "Trust me when I tell you that."
Within five minutes of that call, her son Anthony, a police dispatcher, and three other police officials hastened out of Police Headquarters in shirtsleeves, got into their illegally parked cars, and drove away.
Most often, all prohibited parking areas around police headquarters on Tremont Street are a penalty-free zone - scores of unmarked detective cars, police evidence vans, and personal vehicles of patrol officers and sergeants are ensconced for hours at a time in spots earmarked for the disabled, and at fire hydrants, crosswalks, day-care drop-off, and MBTA bus stops - virtually all of them marked "tow zone."
"Illegal parking in a handicapped spot is no trifling matter. Boston issues 11,000 tickets a year, each of which carries a $120 fine and often a $93 towing charge. And it is not uncommon for passersby to loudly rebuke able-bodied drivers who use parking spots reserved for the disabled.
But violators who use the 11 handicapped-designated spaces in front of Boston Police headquarters are immune from any sanction at all - or even a sidelong glance from the scores of police officers who enter and leave the building every day, according to Globe observations over the past two months.
One repeat scofflaw: the driver of a Toyota Corolla registered to Irene Landry, the city's supervisor of Parking Enforcement, who oversees the 194 parking enforcement officers who write 1.3 million tickets a year.
When a Globe reporter called Landry's office on Feb. 10 to ask about the Toyota, Landry was stunned. "I will investigate," she said. "Trust me when I tell you that."
Within five minutes of that call, her son Anthony, a police dispatcher, and three other police officials hastened out of Police Headquarters in shirtsleeves, got into their illegally parked cars, and drove away.
Most often, all prohibited parking areas around police headquarters on Tremont Street are a penalty-free zone - scores of unmarked detective cars, police evidence vans, and personal vehicles of patrol officers and sergeants are ensconced for hours at a time in spots earmarked for the disabled, and at fire hydrants, crosswalks, day-care drop-off, and MBTA bus stops - virtually all of them marked "tow zone."
posted by nolocontendere at 2:28 AM
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